All the leading contenders to be given the lease for the Stadium after the Olympics and Paralympics, including Premier League football club West Ham United, have promised to keep the track.

Diack told insidethegames: "I am very pleased with the news that the athletics track will stay.

"I never really understood this discussion as to why you could not keep the track.

"A city of London's importance needs to keep a track so it has a top-class athletics facility.

"The solution proposed is a good one."

It was the decision by Diack, who is also an influential member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), in 2005 to switch his support from Paris and instead back London's bid to host the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics that proved one of the pivotal moments of the campaign.

He had vowed not to back London after Tony Blair's Government had failed to keep a promise to build a new athletics stadium at Picketts Lock to host the 2005 World Championships.

That led to the IAAF having to move the Championships to Helsinki, threatening to seriously undermine London's Olympic campaign.

But Coe persuaded him to support London after promising that hosting the Olympics would guarantee a long-term legacy for athletics in Europe's largest capital.

Diack was coach of Senegal's national football team between 1964 and 1968 before launching his political career.

He told insidethegames: "I have nothing against football - except when it is not prepared to share with athletics."

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