IAAF chief's blast over London athletics venue

IOC President Jacques Rogge recently indicated that the body would not object if London reneged on a pledge that 2012 will leave a legacy of a permanent athletics venue for the British capital.

Lamine Dick, the President of athletics' governing body the IAAF, responded on Friday by saying the IOC's attitude displayed a "lack of respect" for the Olympics' most popular sport.

"As an IOC member myself, I voted for the host city for the 2012 Games in Singapore and, obviously, one of the most compelling arguments in favor of London was the fact that the city desperately needed a world class venue for athletics," Dick said.

"A promise was made, and I believe it is totally reasonable to expect that the most important sport of the summer Olympics, which is athletics, gets to live on after the three-week period of the Games is over."

Dick said he did not want a repeat of what happened to the Olympics stadium in Atlanta, now home to baseball side the Atlanta Braves while the United States does not have an athletics venue capable of holding a world championship.

The IAAF chief is still hopeful that London, which is under severe budgetary pressure, will be able to find a way of retaining the athletics track while ensuring the stadium does not become a rarely-used white elephant.

"It has never been said that the post-Games' stadium would be exclusively for athletics," Dick added. “I am also sure that any number of options for ground-sharing with other sports are currently being considered, in various stadium configurations, but let me finally say that, for the IAAF, destroying the track would be totally unacceptable."