Diamond League loses NYC meeting

There will be no more Diamond League meeting in New York as the IAAF lurches into another disappointing day.

The IAAF Diamond League, is losing its New York meeting with Rabat, Morocco, replacing it.

Rabat will become the first African city to participate in the 14-meeting series, which offers cash prizes at the end of the season for each discipline, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) said.

Organisers of the Adidas-sponsored New York competition say they plan instead to conduct a street event featuring distance and sprint races along with field events such as the pole vault and long jump.

"We believe that changing our focus to a street meet is one way to make the event attractive to a younger audience." Mark Wetmore, director of the meeting, said in a statement.

The loss leaves the United States, athletics' top team and most sought after market, with just one Diamond League meeting, the Nike-sponsored Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon.

It comes at a time when the scandal-plagued IAAF is trying to build interest in the sport in the United States by holding its world indoor championships in Portland, Oregon, this month and the 2021 outdoor championships in Eugene.

Adidas's chief executive said on Thursday the company was monitoring how world athletics was dealing with a doping scandal while its sponsorship deal still runs, dismissing reports it had terminated the contract.

An independent commission of the World Anti-Doping Agency found Russia had engaged in widespread, state-sponsored doping and former IAAF president Lamine Diack is under investigation by French authorities after being accused of a cover-up in return for bribes.

Russia is suspended from international athletics and its track and field team will miss August's Rio Olympics unless it is reinstated.


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Source: AAP



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