IAAF president Diack salutes CARIFTA Games

BASSETERRE, St Kitts, CMC – Lamine Diack, president of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), has saluted the annual CARIFTA Games in the Caribbean.

Currently attending the 37^th CARIFTA Games in St Kitts, Diack glorified the impact of the meet and suggested that all regions throughout the world should have a similar event.

"This is one of the goals by the IAAF to get every region to have a meet like the CARIFTA Games,” Diack said.

“Having this kind of competition every year, it only serves as motivation for them (young athletes) to continue,” added Diack, who was elected IAAF president in November 1999.

Originally from Senegal in West Africa, Diack is a former long jumper and football coach.

Diack said the Caribbean is a leading region with the level of this impressive junior meet.

"I think you (the CARIFTA Games) are a far way in front of the others, so I am very impressed every time I come to the CARIFTA Games,” said Diack, who has also been the president of the National Olympic and Sport Committee of Senegal since 1974.

Diack’s first CARIFTA Games experience was in 2002 in the Bahamas, just a few months before he saw Jamaica host the IAAF World Junior Championship.

The CARIFTA Games meet has been an early platform for many of the Caribbean’s world stars, including recent Olympic gold medallists and IAAF World Champions Veronica Campbell and Tonique Williams, of the Bahamas.