By GWEN CHIPASULA –
ZAMBIA Amateur Athletics Association (ZAAA) president Elias Mpondela lost his bid to get elected into the International Athletics Associations Federations (IAAF) executive committee during the general congress held in China.
. Mpondela
Mpondela, who was contesting for a position in IAAF women’s committee, tumbled to third place finishing behind Loannis Koutsogiannopoulos of Greece and Denmark’s Jakob Larsen.
He, however, managed to finish ahead of Moustafa EL Abbadi of Sudan and Dennis Marshall from the Bahamas.
Mpondela said in an interview from Beijing yesterday that he tried his best at the elections that saw Africa perform badly.
“I did extremely well, it is just sad that I lost, otherwise Africans did extremely badly but I tried my best. I lost by 10 votes and I am very humbled with the support I have received through this journey,” he said.
Mpondela was nominated by the Confederation of African Athletics Southern Region (CAASR) and the Confederation of African Athletics (CAA) during the African congress held in Addis Ababa in March this year before IAAF’s approved his candidature.
Sebastian Cole was elected president of the IAAF after beating Ukraine’s Sergey Bubka by 115 votes to 92 at the 50th Congress.
