IAAF
President Lamine Diack recalls a momentous weekend in New York City
I may have
only been in New York City for about 24 hours, but I was so impressed by what I saw there
this weekend that I thought it was right to pen a few words for the IAAF web site.
From Paris direct to JFK on Friday, I was warmly received on arrival by Craig Masback, the CEO of USATF, and New York’s Sports Commissioner Kenneth Podziba. He advised me that the new Mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg and his Deputy Daniel Doctoroff would later receive me at City Hall. Before meeting these gentlemen, I had a fascinating lunch at the New York Times newspaper with the sports editor Neil Amdur, a former track writer, who engaged me and my delegates in a spirited discussion about the state of our sport and ways to raise its profile in the American Media.
Mayor Bloomberg expressed a personal interest in our sport and discussed ways of attracting top class athletics events to New York – “a World Class Sport deserves a World Class City”- was his memorable quote, and he aims to bid energetically for the Olympic Games in 2012. I reminded the Mayor that my presence in the city for the Millrose Games was a symbolic gesture of solidarity, on behalf of all members of the Athletics Family, and that we had all been shocked and saddened by the events of September 11 2001. Following the visit to City Hall, I was accompanied to “Ground Zero”, and saw for myself the awful devastation of a once thriving business district. Captain James Yakomovich of the NY Fire Department, who had survived the collapse of a building adjacent to the Towers in the course of his duty, described the full horror of the events, and the loss of family, friends and long-time colleagues was brought home vividly by his account.
It was a sobering moment, and one which I dwelt upon while watching the athletes perform at the Madison Square Garden later that night. All of us who made the effort to go to the 95th edition of the Millrose Games knew that it was about much more than sport that night.
If my schedule on Friday had been rich and demanding, my visit to “The New York Armory” on Saturday was pure pleasure. The Armory was built over a century ago as a Training Centre for the National Guard. It then became a legendary indoor facility and countless top class performances were track over the years. But by the 1970s, as a social crisis gripped the city, the Armory became a homeless shelter. The turn around came when a New York man, Dr Norbert Sander, a track lover and former winner of the New York Marathon, made it his mission to restore the venue to its past glory. In fact, after raising $11,000,000, Dr Sander has created something absolutely extraordinary. A beautiful, historic civic monument that now contains a 200 metre banked Mondo surface that is claimed to be one of the fastest in the world. The building also contains classrooms for English, Maths and Computer Science, another important service to the local community. The facility has also captivated Craig Masback, who will host the US Indoor Championships here in a month’s time, and looks forward to the opening of the US Track & Field Hall of Fame in 2003.
But is it used? Just consider this incredible statistic. In 2001 there were 89 indoor competitions at the Armory. This morning, as I look around, it is packed with local Catholic schoolboys, all in their early teens, who compete with pride and enthusiasm. Dr Sander is delighted to point out that 3000 kids once competed on the same day inside this echoing hall. As I climbed into the car to begin the next leg of my journey to the Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, I had a smile on my face. Because a visit that had started as a tribute to those lost had ended, in the Armory, full of hope for the future.
