© Stade de France ®
Macary, Zublena et Regembal
Costantini - Architectes
ADAGP - Paris - 2002
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ATHLETES' VILLAGE  |
 ATHLETES AT THE POLLS
Paris 2003 Saint-Denis
For the last three days the Athletes’ Village has been vibrating with the excitement of the competition but has also been buzzing as the elections for the new Athletes’ Commission have got under way. We take a look at what went on in and around the ballot box.
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| Maurice Greene a voté ! |
The wide smiles worn by the organisers of these first Athletes Commission elections spoke volumes of their tremendous satisfaction. Up until now, the IAAF Council selected the Athletes that became members of the Commission, but this year they decided to leave that choice to the Athletes themselves. So, for three days, from 7:00am to 2:00pm, they have been maintaining a vigil at the restaurant entrance to gather as many votes as possible and encourage the apathetic to submit their ballot slips. And the results have been decidedly conclusive!
While certain unrepresented delegations such as the United States or Germany were unmoved by the event, others such as Russia swung into mass action to back their candidate. But the former nations need not be too concerned, as the Commission will subsequently be designating 7 candidates in order to balance out the disparities between regions of the globe.
On the first day, over 740 individuals came to vote, requiring an entire day for the counting process. Although there were admittedly a few small communication hiccups, particularly with the Asian delegations, the Elections Committee had the chance to rub shoulders with personalities like Serguey Bubka (UKR), Alberto Juantorena (CUB) and Nawal El Moutawakel (MOR), who by dint of their reputations and linguistic diversity, helped mobilise more athletes to vote. All in all, in excess of a thousand athletes came to support their twelve favourite candidates, and now… on the very morning of the final result of these elections, we are able to announce that Haile Gebreselassie (ETH), Hicham El Guerrouj (MAR) and Stephane Diagana (FRA) came out tops. They will be 12 in the final.
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