About Stéphane Diagana Stéphane Diagana (born July 23, 1969 in Saint-Affrique) is a former French athlete who won the gold medal at the 1997 World Championships in Athletics in Athens over 400 metres hurdles. In 2002 he won the gold medal at the European Championships in Athletics in Munich in the same event. Diagana also set the European record of 47.37 sec. in Lausanne in 1995.He was a torch runner for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, however Paris city councillor Sylvain Garel tried to snatch the torch from his hands.