KENYAN TEENAGER WINS $1 MILLION GOLDEN LEAGUE JACKPOT
By David Monti
(c) 2008 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved - used with permissio

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A teenage athlete whom athletics fans had never heard of at the beginning of this year has walked off with the $1million ÅF Golden League Jackpot, the biggest annual payday in all of track and field.

Pamela Jelimo, the 18 year-old Kenyan 800m sensation was a perfect six for six in the ÅF Golden League, winning tonight's race at the 31st Memorial Van Damme in Brussels in a meet record 1:55.16. Just minutes after her victory, Croation high jumper Blanka Vlasic missed her third attempt at 2.02m delivering the whole jackpot to Jelimo. Vlasic had won her five previous competitions on the Golden League circuit and was the only athlete who could have shared the jackpot with Jelimo.

Jelimo was not only undefeated in the ÅF Golden League, but won the Olympic title as well. In fourteen 800m races this year, including heats, she won every one of them.

What plans Jelimo has for the money is anyone's guess: the post-meet press conference has yet to be held.

NOTE: A complete story on the meet is coming to you from Assistant Editor Bob Ramsak in Brussels --Ed.

ENDS

CAPPING UNPRECEDENTED RISE FROM OBSCURITY, JELIMO TAKES $1 MILLION JACKPOT IN BRUSSELS

By Bob Ramsak
(c) 2008 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved - used with permission

BRUSSELS -- When the Golden League events were selected last December, Pamela Jelimo, a largely unknown junior even in her native Kenya, had yet to contest her first 800m race. Tonight, the 18-year-old capped one of the most extraordinary rises from obscurity to win the $1 million AF Golden League Jackpot, the largest prize in track and field.

“I am happy, I realized my dream,” said Jelimo, who became the first sole winner of the prize since triple jumper Tatyana Lebedeva went six-for-six in this series of the world’s finest one-day meets in 2005. “This is the same happiness as in Beijing.”

In what is now trademark fashion, Jelimo went out fast from the gun, tailing pacesetter Svetlana Klyuka from the outset. By 400m, Klyuka, who was fourth at the Olympic Games, was already laboring to keep a step ahead of the Kenyan; at the 600m mark (1:25.42 by Jelimo), she had already stepped aside, with Jelimo then sailing home in 1:55.16, more than three-and-a-half seconds clear of runner-up Janeth Jepkosgei (1:58.85).

She would have to wait about a half hour for the women’s high jump to conclude before banking the entire prize pot. The chilly conditions and wet surface --along with $500,000 riding on the outcome-- made for a dramatic competition but it was clear early on that Vlasic was having a rare off night. Struggling from the get-go, she eventually finished second behind German Ariane Friedrich, to leave the Belgian capital empty-handed.

“I sympathize for her, but that is the nature of this sport,” Jelimo, the Olympic champion, said of her Jackpot chase rival. “Today you lose, but tomorrow you can do your best and be a winner again. And that is what I wish for her.”

Jelimo said she hasn’t given much thought to how her money will be spent, but indicated that most of it will be shared with her family in Eldoret.

“I will have to help my family,” she said. “I will invest intelligently because this money will help me and my family in the future.”

[For an overview of Jelimo’s season, see my story for the IAAF at http://www.iaaf.org/GLE08/news/newsid=47530.html ]

The 32nd edition of Belgium’s largest sporting event was sold out for the 12th straight year, filling the Roi Baudouin Stadium with one of the most memorable atmospheres of the 14-week long Golden League series. But the damp conditions, coupled with post-Olympic fatigue, produced primarily lackluster results on a packed middle and long distance program.

The biggest surprise came in the women’s 5000m, dubbed as a world record assault by former standard bearer Meseret Defar. But well behind schedule and running at the front by 3000m (8:41.14), the Ethiopian world 5000m champion was forced to just work for victory. But with a few laps to go, she found herself in a fierce tussle with Vivian Cheruiyot. The Kenyan, who chased Defar to her 2007 world record in Oslo, didn’t let up over the final lap and as the pair ran down the homestretch, it was Cheruiyot, who took silver behind Defar at last year’s world championships, who prevailed, 14:25.43 to 14:25.52.

“I nearly always come behind Defar and so to beat her is very nice,” said Cheruiyot, whose run was a meet record.

The pace in the men’s 5000m, run in a steady rain in the meet’s pre-program, was some 13 seconds behind schedule at 3000m (7:57.14), thus Eliud Kipchoge’s assault on Kenenisa Bekele’s world leading 12:50.18 never materialized. The Olympic silver medallist did however maintain his spot in the driver’s seat. In an otherwise straightforward race, the Kenyan took the lead with a lap-and-a-half to go to take the win unchallenged in 13:06.12. Isaac Songok (13:06.71) was second and Mang’ata Ndiwa (13:07.46) third to round out a Kenyan sweep. Briton Mo Farah ran a season’s best 13:08.11 for fourth.

Paul Kipsiele Koech didn’t get the sub-eight clocking in the steeplechase that he came here for, but he did take down a big name: Olympic champion Brimin Kipruto. Koech, who didn’t earn a spot to Beijing at the Kenyan trials, was clearly in command throughout and by the time second pacer Patrick Langat stepped aside, Koech was all alone over the final two laps. He went on to win handily in 8:04.99, well ahead of Kipruto (8:10.26), who outdistanced Kenyan-born Bahraini Tareq Mubarak Taher (8:15.32).

Youssef Saad Kamel, the former Kenyan Gregory Konchellah, continued his late-season charge with a solid victory in the 800. Just three days after a PB victory in the Lausanne 1500m, Kamel kicked to a 1:44.56 win, taking down Olympic bronze medallist Alfred Kirwa Yego and Moroccan Amine Laalou, who were virtually inseparable at the line and each credited with 1:45.01. Olympic champion Wilfred Bungei, running at the front with pacesetter Ismail Kombich over the first lap, faded badly over the final 100 meters, and finished a well-beaten seventh (1:46.01).

Ali Belal Mansour of Bahrain took a scrappy victory in the 1500, clocking 3:35.94. In a blanket finish, Abdelaati Iguider (3:36.14) of Morocco held off Olympic bronze medallist Nick Willis (3:36.23), who moved from fifth to third over the final the 50 meters.

Capping the evening was the men’s 10,000m, which with the absence of world record holder and Olympic champion Kenenisa Bekele, was won, predictably, by his constant shadow, Sileshi Sihine. The Ethiopian kicked past Kenyan Moses Masai in the waning stages to take the win in 27:06.97 to Masai’s 27:07.26, with Bernard Kipyego third (27:08.06).

With two major stops --Rieti, Italy, on Sunday and Zagreb, Croatia, on Tuesday-- remaining on the calendar, the European season will reach its conclusion at the two-day World Athletics Final in Stuttgart next weekend.

ENDS