The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) team that brought us the 2019 IAAF Doha World Athletics Championships did so through a contrived bid process, where bribes were apparently accepted.

The amount is apparently over $500,000.

The competition has been exciting – as the athletes want to compete at the highest level – but it is difficult for anyone to view the meet without concern for the empty seats and blazing temperatures that have ruined outdoor events such as the marathon and the 50K Racewalk.

Although second-term IAAF president Sebastian Coe isn’t happy with the media’s response, the meet cannot be tied to him. The meet is the doing of Lamine and Pappa Massata Diack. The father and son dog and pony show currently serving time in jail for extortion, bribery and other financial malfeasance.

Lamine is the former president of the IAAF, while his son was in charge of marketing.

From Inside the Games

Sebastian Coe has claimed the media should be concentrating more on the quality of the competition at the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Championships rather than the lack of spectators watching it here.

The IAAF President saved particular scorn for the BBC, the host broadcaster in his home country Britain, criticising presenter Gabby Logan, one of the Corporation’s most versatile and well-respected presenters, for drawing attention to the poor attendances.

“It’s very easy to sit there and make all sorts of Gabby Logan-type judgments over three or four days and clear off back to Match of the Day,” Coe said.

“But it’s really important that we see the long-term development of our sport.

“That’s not going to be done because we have challenges over ticketing in a stadium for three days.

“The problem I’ve got with that is it’s the way our sport is being portrayed by some of the people in that studio.”

Coe is frustrated that more attention is not being paid to some outstanding performances, including the victory in the 800 metres last night of America’s Donavan Brazier.

“I’ve got people, whose judgment I do trust who are saying it would be great if a 1min 42.4sec run and some great performances were being dissected,” he said.

“The crowd is an easier subject to talk about rather than some of the more insightful stuff around the events.

“I accept that, that’s the world we live in.

“There are places which are going to take longer for us to go to, but people have to believe this sport is theirs, it’s not just rooted in a handful of European capitals.”

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Elsewhere in athletics:

Sergey Bubka has been confirmed senior vice-president of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) for a third term, it has been announced here.

The decision to confirm Ukraine’s former pole vaulter in the role was taken at the first meeting of the newly elected IAAF Council since last week’s election.

It will be Bubka’s third term as senior vice-president.

He was originally appointed to the role by former IAAF President Lamine Diack in 2007.

Bubka, the 1988 Olympic gold medallist, stood against Britain’s Sebastian Coe to replace Diack when the Senegalese stood down in 2015.

He was beaten, but Coe appointed him as vice-president following the election.

Bubka, a member of the International Olympic Committee, tweeted that he was “honoured” to be given the role again.

Among those attending the meeting for the first time was Ximena Restrepo, the Colombian-born former 400 metres runner who last Wednesday (September 25) became the first female vice-president in the IAAF’s 107-year history.

She was elected along with Bubka, Norfolk Island’s Geoffrey Gardner and Saudi Arabia’s Prince Nawaf Bin Mohammed Al Saud.

In other decisions made at the Council meeting, Finland’s Antti Pihlakoski was reappointed to the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) Board Appointments Panel and Abby Hoffman was reappointed to the AIU Board.

2019 Doha World Athletics Championships:

Grant Holloway earned a breakthrough 110 metres hurdles win here at the International Association of Athletics Federations World Championships on a night when Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith duly delivered on 200m gold.

The 21-year-old United States runner the won gold medal in a time of 13.10sec to mark his first season as a professional.

He led from the gun, putting remorseless pressure on the defending and Olympic champion, Omar McLeod of Jamaica, to the point where the latter clattered to the deck after hitting the three final hurdles with increasing force.

As he fell, McLeod unwittingly forced Spain’s IAAF Diamond League champion Orlando Ortega out of his lane, thus undermining the latter’s chances of a medal.

Silver went to Authorised Neutral Athlete Sergey Shubenkov, the 2015 champion and 2017 silver medallist, who chased the new arrival home from the outside lane, adding a silver to his collection in 13.15.

France’s European champion Pascal Martinot-Lagarde took bronze in 13.18.

“I am speechless,” said Holloway, who is in fact one of the most wry and articulate athletes on the circuit.

2It’s my first major Championships and a lot of people were counting me out because I’ve been off my game in the last month or so.

“But when you have motivation you never lose.”

Earlier in the evening, the 23-year-old Asher-Smith had lived up to her billing as overwhelming favourite in the women’s 200m final by winning overwhelmingly, in a British record of 21.88.

After the injuries that had befallen potential rivals such as Jamaica’s Rio 2016 gold medallist Elaine Thompson, 2013 and 2015 world champion Dafne Schippers of The Netherlands and 2017 world silver medallist Marie-Josee Ta Lee of the Ivory Coast, Asher-Smith had less of a task in her final that there might have been.

All she could do was to make as convincing a job as possible of adding gold to the silver she won in the 100m behind Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce on Sunday (September 29) – and this she did as she finished with five metres to spare, trimming a hundredth of a second off the time in which she secured the European title in Berlin last summer.