Diack was a champion long jumper in the late 1950s, winning the event at the 1958 French Athletics Championships and holding the French/West African record from 1957 to 1960.

Diack became president of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) on 8 November 1999, and was re-elected for his fourth and final four-year term on 16 October 2011.

[2] Diack received three payments in 1993 from ISL at a time when the company was in negotiations with the IAAF to sign a marketing contract.

[3] In November 2015, Diack and several other top IAAF officials were arrested in France and charged with "passive corruption" and money laundering by French financial prosecutors.

Diack was placed under house arrest in Paris and Gabriel Dollé, the former anti-doping manager at the IAAF, was taken into custody in Nice.