Diack's decision might leave Lord Coe waiting in the wings

From Steven Downes in Berlin

 IN the week when the International Association of Athletics Federations controversially changed its rules on false starts, the recall gun was fired on the race to become the next president of athletics’ world governing body - leaving Lord Coe, one of the favourites for the top job, effectively standing in his blocks.

LOOKING ON: Lord Coe - tipped as a future IAAF president - might have to wait if incumbent Lamine Diack stays in the job, as he hinted in Berlin (Getty Images)

It was widely anticipated that Lamine Diack, 76, from Senegal, would not seek re-election as president at the IAAF’s next Congress, in Daegu, South Korea, in 2011.

Lord Coe, the chairman of the London 2012 Olympic organising committee, has not publicly stated any ambition for the IAAF job, which carries with it an automatic membership of the International Olympic Committee.

But Coe, the Olympic 1,500m gold medallist in 1980 and 1984, is a strong favourite in Europe and many Commonwealth countries for the IAAF presidency, one of the most influential jobs in world sport.

Chief among Coe’s likely rivals is another athletics great of the 1980s, former pole vaulter Sergey Bubka, of Ukraine.