Frankie Fredericks "stepped down from his role overseeing the bidding process for the 2024 Olympics amid an investigation into money he accepted from a sports marketing consultant accused of corruption," according to Martyn Ziegler of the LONDON TIMES. The former sprinter "strongly denied any wrongdoing" in accepting nearly $300,000, paid on the day in '09 that Rio de Janeiro was awarded the 2016 Olympics. Fredericks issued a statement which said, "I have personally decided that it is in the best interests of a good functioning of the International Olympic Committee candidature process that I step aside as chairperson of the 2024 Evaluation Commission ... Paris and Los Angeles are presenting two fantastic candidatures and I do not wish to become a distraction from this great contest." The IOC's ethics commission is investigating payments to Fredericks' company from Papa Massata Diack, the "disgraced" son of former IAAF President Lamine Diack, on Oct. 2, 2009. Fredericks said that "the payment was to honour a contract signed with Diack's marketing agency" in '07 (LONDON TIMES, 3/7). The AP's Graham Dunbar reported the elder Diack is in France, where state prosecutors are "investigating alleged corruption" in the IAAF. His son, who has been banned for life by the IAAF, is "evading questioning and thought to be in his native Senegal." French newspaper Le Monde reported Papa Massata Diack's marketing company received $1.5M from a Brazilian businessman "days before Rio's victory in a four-city contest." Fredericks, a senior IAAF official, said that he "had a marketing contract with Papa Massata Diack's agency, Pamodzi Sports Consulting," from '07-11. Fredericks added, "I reiterate that I was never involved with any vote manipulation or for that matter any other inappropriate or illegal practice" (AP, 3/7).
IAAF REPLACEMENT: IAAF President Sebastian Coe appointed IAAF Athletes' Commission Chair Rozle Prezelj to replace IAAF Council member Fredericks, who stepped aside as a member of the five-strong IAAF Taskforce which is coordinating the re-admittance process concerning the suspended Russian Athletics Federation (IAAF).
