Men&#146;s javelin throw 
Steven Downes for IAAF

22 October 2000 &#150; Gerhardus Pienaar underlined what a great championships these
have been for South Africa, when he won his team&#146;s fourth gold medal in the
men&#146;s javelin final here on Sunday.

The big man&#146;s third-round national junior record 78.11 metres secured the title,
from Norway&#146;s Andreas Thorkilsen, whose 76.34 was also a national junior best.

Korea won their first medal of the championships, thanks to the fourth-round effortof
72.36 by Jae-Myong Park.

&nbsp;

Gerhardus Pienaar underlined what a great championships these have been for South Africa, when he won his team’s fourth gold medal in the men’s javelin final

Men's javelin throw final

Phil Minshull for the IAAF

22 October 2000 - It took Cornelius Chirchir just 30 metres to get to the front of the
men's 1,500 and there the Kenyan stayed for the entire race.

Chirchir, brother of Annecy 800 winner William Chirchir, covered the first 400 in a
speedy 57.99, followed closely by Germany's Wolfram Muller.

The first and second man remained the same, although the order was constantly changing
behind them, through the next lap as 800 was reached in 1:59.57.

On the third lap the diminutive Philemon Kibet came past Muller to give rise to the
possibility of a Kenyan 1-2, however there was never any doubt who was going to win after
Chirchir sped away at the bell, reached in 2:58.10.

He uncorked a 54.47 last lap to leave the rest of his rivals trailing in his wake and
the school student, who is at the famous St Patrick's school in Iten crossed the line
barely out of breath.

Behind him Muller managed to get past Kibet for the silver, coming home in 3:39.37,
with Kibet clocking a personal best of 3:40.77.

It took Cornelius Chirchir just 30 metres to get to the front of the men's 1500 and there the Kenyan stayed for the entire race.

Men's 1500m final

Women&#146;s 4x400m relay final 
Steven Downes for IAAF

22 October 2000 &#150; The surprise of the final day at the World Junior Championships
here on Sunday was the gold medal victory of the British 4x400 metres relay team.

Only fancied as an outside chance of a medal before the championships began, the squad
was led off by 200m individual finalist, Kim Wall, who handed over the baton after the
first lap only a metre down on Sheryl Morgan, running for the pre-race favourites,
Jamaica.

The race then became a game of cat-and-mouse between Jamaica and Britain, with Germany,
Romania and Poland making up ground on the penultimate lap.

Down the homestraight, Britain&#146;s Helen Thieme forced herself just ahead of
Anneisha McLaughlin at the line, to put Lisa Miller &#150; only a semi-finallist in the
individual 400m &#150; in the invidious position of leading out the final lap ahead of
three other medal-hungry teams.

Yet Miller ran a race mature beyond her years, gradually winding up the pace until she
hit the homestraight with a marginal advantage over Melanie Walker, who could do no more
than ensure Jamaica the silver in 3min 33.99sec behind the British national junior record
3:33.82. Romania headed Poland for bronze, in 3:34.49.

&nbsp;

The surprise of the final day at the World Junior Championships here on Sunday was the gold medal victory of the British 4x400 metres relay team.

Women's 4x400m relay final

Campbell
fostered at the cradle of Jamaican sprinting 
Garfield Samuels for the IAAF

21 October 2000 - Veronica Campbell, the reigning world youth 100 metres champion added
two world junior titles to her coffers, in the process becoming the first female athlete
to win the sprint double in the history of the world junior championships. 

In the process, Campbell also bettered both championships records. The 18 year old
Jamaican won the 100 metres in 11.12 seconds, four hundredths of a second faster than the
national junior record she set at the Jamaica national championships on 21 July then
completed a successful year by taking the 200 metres in 22.87 seconds, also a national
junior record.

Campbell&#146;s string of successes started at the national inter-secondary schools
athletics championships in Kingston in early April, where she took the sprint double for
girls under 20 in 11.62 and 23.49 seconds respectively and helped Vere Technical High
School&#146;s 4x100metres relay team to secure gold.

A week later in Grenada at the Carifta Games, she won the 200 metres in what was then a
national junior record 23.05 seconds and finished second in 11.41 seconds to fellow
Jamaican Nadine Palmer's 11.37 seconds in the 100m.

Campbell was outstanding at the Sydney Olympic Games where she ran the second leg on
Jamaica&#146;s 4x100 metres relay team which won silver behind the Bahamas.

A promising future awaits Veronica Campbell who has said that she intends to follow in
the footsteps of 6-time Olympian Merlene Ottey who also attended Vere Technical in the
late 70&#146;s before going off on scholarship to the University of Nebraska in the USA.

Campbell was born on May 16, 1982 in Trelawny-north western
Jamaica.

Campbell, the reigning world youth 100metres champion added two world junior titles to her coffers

Campbell fostered at the cradle of Jamaican sprinting

Carolina &#150; the complete allround talent 
Lennart Julin for the IAAF 

22 October 2000 - &quot;I knew that I was regarded as a medal contender, but a world
championships is something very special and anything can happen. It was here and now that
counted, previous accomplishments had no significance.

&quot;I was really nervous before the second day, so I decided to just try to enjoy
myself. But it wasn&#146;t until just five meters remained of the 800 that I knew for sure
that I would win!&quot;

Those were the first comments from the jubilant 17-year-old world junior champion in
the heptathlon, Carolina Klüft, after finishing her two strenuous days of competition in
the Estadio Nacional with a convincing victory in the concluding 800m race. But of course
the climb to the top position of the victory podium in Santiago begun much earlier than
with the Friday morning hurdles race.

It probably was inevitable that Carolina would become involved in sports as her father
Johnny was a first division soccer player and her mother Ingalill a national class long
jumper (personal best 6.09). Living in the city of Växjö most likely also contributed to
Carolina&#146;s choice of path, because Växjö is one of the true &quot;athletic
hubs&quot; in Sweden:

The newly crowned world junior champion &quot;Carro&quot; is actually the fifth athlete
from local club IFK Växjö to compete in the World Junior Championships. She is following
in the footsteps of 1500m-runner Anette Karlsson (7th in 1986), pole vaulter
Peter Widén (finalist 1986) and 100m-runners Linda Hansson (1992) and Christopher Ohlsson
(semifinalist 1996).

When Carolina at age 11 in 1994 first tried out athletics she had immediate success
clearing 1.46 in the high jump. The high jump would remain her main event and she steadily
improved her yearly best marks (1.56 &#150; 1.64 &#150; 1.73i &#150; 1.77 &#150; 1.83)
thereby remaining among the very best in her age group nationally. Her first major
international competition, the 1999 European Youth Olympic Days, ended with the HJ gold
medal!

However, as the years passed Carolina also steadily enlarged her repertoire with other
events: e.g. a 2.90 PV at age 14, a 12.23 TJ, a 37.16 JT and a 2:19 for 800m at age 15, a
6.13 LJ, a 24.58 for 200m and a 13.98 (76.2 cm) for 100m hurdles at age 16. It thus became
increasingly apparent that her best event most likely would be a combined event, the
heptathlon.

The definitive proof of that assumption came at the Swedish Youth Championships last
autumn where she produced a series with 76.2 cm hurdles and 3 kg shot that could be
equated to a 5.600-score with senior implements. So when she opened her 2000 season in
Lerum in May the only question was by how much the national junior record of 5.538 points
&#150; set one year before Carolina was born! - would be improved.

The answer was &quot;by almost 300 points&quot; and the 5.810 score came despite a
series that was far from &quot;perfect&quot;. The same could be said about her 5.814 at
home in Växjö a few weeks later. Actually she was just gearing up for the Nordic
Championships to be held in Norway in mid-July. In the weeks leading up she scored a whole
bunch of new PR&#146;s: sprinting 11.90, hurdling 13.88/41.22, jumping 1.85 and throwing
the javelin 42.05.

But then at the Nordic Championships in Geithus (Modum) disaster struck already in the
first event as Carolina stumbled at the seventh hurdle. In some miraculous way she managed
to stay on her feet and get into the race again. But all momentum was lost so when she
reached the finish line in 17.02 all hopes of a new record score had disappeared as she
had lost some 400 points!

However, Carolina herself obviously didn&#146;t feel that everything had been lost.
Rather the mishap seemed to ignite an extra competitive fire in her and she actually
PR&#146;ed at all the following five events: 1.85 (very, very close at 1.88), 11.81, 24.47
(into a headwind!), 6.23 (also into a headwind!) and 44.39! So although Carolina
didn&#146;t run all out in the concluding 800m (2:16) she ended up with a final score of
5.764, i.e. just 50 points shy of her NJR despite the costly calamity in the opening
event.

Since then Carolina was preparing for an all-out heptathlon effort in Santiago. In the
meantime she was honing her skills by competing in various individual events. Noticeable
were the 45.71 JT at the Swedish Junior Championships and her win &#150; over the middle
distance specialists &#150; at 800m in the Swedish School Championhips where she also
contributed a storming 54-second relay leg for her school!

So Carolina Klüft was well prepared for taking on the best junior heptahletes in the
world in Santiago and the outcome was memorable: Carolina&#146;s winning score of 6.056
points was the highest in WJC heptathon since 1990 and she won by the comfortable margin
of 158 points.

That despite a series that included &quot;only&quot; one new individual PR. But that PR
then was very special as she improved in the shot put from a pre-Santiago best of 11.81 to
first 12.27 &#150; and then 13.27. Almost one and half meters! No wonder then that
Carolina&#146;s spontaneous comment was &quot;I just got everything into that
put!&quot;

But the most remarkable fact about her winning WJC effort was that despite facing no
less than 19 competitors Carolina finished in the top-3 individually in all seven
events (two wins, two second places and three third places)! An astonishing demonstration
of a truly complete all-round ability. The feat has definitely not been matched by any
previous world junior heptathlon champion and almost certainly not by any senior world or
olympic champion either.

And the combined events community should beware: Carolina is still only 17 (born 2
February 1983) so she will be eligible also for the 2002 WJC in Kingston! And should the
heptathlon &#150; as has been suggested - be turned into a decathlon in a not-too-distant
future that is no scare for Carolina, as she vaulted 2.90 as a 14-year-old and as she
recently did 33.96 when she just for fun threw the discus in a local meet!

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

"I knew that I was regarded as a medal contender, but a world championships is something very special and anything can happen. It was here and now that counted, previous accomplishments had no significance.

Carolina – the complete all-round talent

Phil Minshull for the IAAF

22 October 2000 - Spectators who were at the last world junior championships in Annecy
need no reminding of the effortless long-striding gait of William Chirchir. 

The Kenyan hardly seemed to touch the ground as he floated to the 800 metres title in
France. 

Turn the clock forward two years to Santiago and you could be forgiven for thinking
that he had forged his passport and had returned to acquire another title.

However any confusion can be excused as instead of it being William on the start line
of the men's 1500 it was his younger carbon-copy brother Cornelius, who won the World
Youth 1500m title in Poland last year.

Cornelius upgraded his gold medal to Junior status by winning the 1500 with ease,
running at the front for the entire race, and the Chirchirs became only the second set of
brothers to win world junior gold medals since their compatriots Jonah and Matthew Birir.

&quot;This was an easy race from me. I've run 3:35 so 3:38 is very comfortable for
me,&quot; Chirchir said.

&quot;I knew that no one in the field was as fast as me so that is why I got to the
front quickly and put in a fast first lap. It avoided trouble and I knew that no one else
could stay with me on the final lap after that. It was all planned,&quot; he added.

Nevertheless, even though he never expected anything less than a gold medal, Chirchir
was still delighted with having emulated his brother.

&quot;Kenya has been doing very well at this championship so I couldn't let the side
down. I also wanted to win for my brother because I was watching what happened to him at
the Olympics on TV at home in Kenya.&quot;

In Sydney, William Chirchir was jostled during his heat and failed to progress to the
semifinals but protests and counter-protests had his fate oscillating for nearly 48 hours.

In years to come the brothers may be room mates at major championships but for the
moment William is the senior partner in the relationship.

Last year William rarely let his younger brother train with him, suggesting that
Cornelius couldn't handle the training load. This year, as Cornelius' body has matured,
the pair now train together when William returns home and Cornelius has holidays from his
studies at the famous St Patrick's school.

The Chirchir family production line has not come to an end though, Vincent and Kipnyego
back home and waiting for their chance to impress.

&quot;Last year I didn't let them train with me, I preferred to train alone,&quot;
Cornelius laughed. &quot;But now we train together sometimes.&quot;

Despite Kenya's great tradition at cross country running, it is not one that Chirchir
intends to pursue just yet. &quot;Firstly my studies are very important and also I don't
like cross country -

- the races are too long. It blunts my speed.&quot; 

On a day when he won the 1500m gold as casually as a walk in the park, Chirchir
indicated that such an activity was about as close as he would get to running over rough
terrain.

Spectators who were at the last world junior championships in Annecy need no reminding of the effortless long-striding gait of William Chirchir. The Kenyan hardly seemed to touch the ground as he floated to the 800 metres title in France. 

Chirchir keeps it in the family

Men&#146;s 4x400m relay final 
Steven Downes for IAAF

22 October 2000 &#150; Jamaica&#146;s outstanding World Junior Championships were
capped off with a gold run in the final event of the week, the men&#146;s 4x400 metres
relay.

Jamaica&#146;s eighth medal &#150; and third gold &#150; was secured as Brandon Simpson
sprinted home, his tongue poked from his mouth in delight.

The frantic last lap had begun with five teams in contention for the medals, drawn from
Europe, Africa, central and South America. But it was Simpson, the individual 400m silver
medallist, who had the class to outrun Germany and South Africa, who were pipped for the
bronze by 400m hurdles gold medallist Marek Plawgo&#146;s late charge for Poland.

Sekou Clarke, Aldwyn Sappleton, Pete Coley and Simpson finished in 3min 06.06sec, with
Germany taking silver in 3:06.79, and Poland third with 3:07.05.

&nbsp;

Jamaica’s outstanding World Junior Championships were capped off with a gold run in the final event of the week, the men’s 4x400 metres relay.

Men's 4x400m relay final

Women&#146;s 3000m final 
Steven Downes for IAAF

22 October 2000 &#150; Beatrice Jepchumba&#146;s gold medal in the women&#146;s 3,000
metres on Sunday duly completed almost total domination by Kenya of all the distance
events at the World Junior Championships here.

With the sole exception of the women&#146;s 1500m (won by Ethiopia&#146;s Abebech
Negussie), Kenyan men and women have won every running event from 800 metres upwards,
including the steeplechase, the seven gold medals planting the east Africans firmly on top
of the medals table on the final day of the championships.

This was a facile victory for Jepchumba, who came into the race as one of only two of
the 18-strong field to have a sub-9min personal best &#150; the other being her team mate
Jane Chepkoech.

Both loped along with the leading group, through kilometres in 3min 05.38 and 6:09.60,
before really taking the race by the scruff of the neck at the bell, running away with
ease from Etablemahu Kidane, of Ethiopia, and Fang Chen of China.

Jepchumba (9:08.80) and Chepkoech (9:10.05) secured another Kenyan one-two, as
Kidane&#146;s 9:11.55 personal best just outdid the lifetime best 9:12.53 by the young
woman from China, who was so tired by the race, she staggered across the line.

Beatrice Jepchumba’s gold medal in the women’s 3,000 metres on Sunday duly completed almost total domination by Kenya of all the distance events at the World Junior Championships here

Women's 3000m final

Women&#146;s 1500 final 
Steven Downes for IAAF

21 October 2000 &#150; Abebech Negussie delivered Ethiopia&#146;s first gold medal of
these 8th World Junior Championships when she outsprinted Rose Kosgei and
Georgie Clarke over the final lap of a slow, tactical race, crossing the line in 4min
19.93sec.

It was the second world championship medal won by Negussie this year &#150; in March,
she was eighth, and fourth scorer, in Ethiopia&#146;s silver medal-winning team at the
World Cross-country.

Here, Kenya&#146;s Kosgei collected the silver, with her 4:20.16, while 16-year-old
Clarke, silver medallist at 800m on Friday, this time won bronze in 4:20.21.

The race had started out at little more than a jog, Clarke&#146;s Australian team mate,
Melissa Rollison, clicking through laps of 72.05sec and 73.55sec.

Kosgei made the first move at the bell, but was chased hard by Negussie and South
Africa&#146;s Zanelle Grobler, with Clarke losing her position slightly down the back
straight.

By the time Clarke attacked off the final bend, the Ethiopian had opened what proved to
be a decisive one-metre gap, and she was able to celebrate even before she reached the
finish.

Abebech Negussie delivered Ethiopia’s first gold medal of these 8th World Junior Championships when she outsprinted Rose Kosgei and Georgie Clarke over the final lap of a slow, tactical race, crossing the line in 4min 19.93sec

Women's 1500m final

Women&#146;s 200m final 
Steven Downes for the IAAF

21 October 2000 &#150; Veronica Campbell further marked herself out as the next great
Jamaican sprinter, when she became the first woman to complete the 100-200 metres sprint
double at the World Junior Championships here on Saturday, as she took the 200m final in
commanding style.

For not only did the double gold medallist from last year&#146;s World Youth
Championships win her second gold of this week, she did so with her second championship
record of the week, 22.87sec.

Campbell, aged 18, was driven to this new level of performance by her close rivalry
with Germany&#146;s double European Junior champion from 1999, Sina Schielke. But the
Jamaican was too strong off the bend, leaving the German to take silver with 23.20, with
Vida Anim, of Ghana, third in 23.81.

&quot;It is really important to me to be the first woman to win the 100 and 200 metres
at the World Juniors,&quot; Campbell said.

&quot;I was told to run the corner hard and to use the momentum down the
straight.&quot; Campbell said that she never felt under any pressure from Schielke, who
was drawn in the lane outside her. &quot;I knew I would catch her when we were on the
straight,&quot; she said.

Campbell &#150; a relay silver medallist at last month&#146;s Sydney Olympics &#150;
could yet win a third gold medal here in Sunday&#146;s 4x100m relay.

Comparisons will doubtless soon be drawn between Campbell and the world&#146;s No.1
senior sprinter of the moment, Marion Jones of the United States, or with the icon of
Jamaican athletics, Merlene Ottey.

The young Jamaican, who lives in Trelawney, may get a chance to race against Jones next
year at the IAAF World Championships in Edmonton. But with her rapidly growing collection
of gold medals, Campbell is already exceeding the achievements of Ottey&#146;s early
career.

Veronica Campbell further marked herself out as the next great Jamaican sprinter, when she became the first woman to complete the 100-200 metres sprint double

Women's 200m final

Jana Pittman had no sooner completed an astonishing golden double of 400 metres and 400 metres hurdles at the World Junior Championships here on Saturday, than she was setting her sights at accomplishing a similar double at Olympic level to match the gold medal-winning feat at the Sydney Games of Australian heroine Cathy Freeman.
Pittman had survived a gruelling race programme of five races in as many days here, winning the 400 metres final on Friday and then withstanding a late surge over the hurdles from Dutch woman Marjolein de Jong to achieve an unprecedented double with victory in 56.27sec to de Jong&rsquo;s 56.50. Jamaica&rsquo;s Melaine Walker took the bronze in 56.96.
Even the tough and powerful Pittman was forced to accept that the race programme had almost caught her out. "I have to admit, that last 100 metres was very difficult for me," said the young woman who came to prominence last year when she won the World Youth 400m hurdles title in Poland.
"No one&rsquo;s ever done this 400-400 hurdles double before, and I wanted to be the first, to make a bit of history."
Three weeks short of her 18th birthday, Pittman is a high school student from Sydney who trains with Melinda Gainsford-Taylor and sometimes also with Freeman, the Australian icon who lit the Olympic flame last month and won the 400m gold.
Pittman said that she was inspired by taking part at the Sydney Games and that she now wants to emulate Freeman&rsquo;s achievement, and the 1988 400m hurdles gold won by another Australian, Debbie Flintoff-King.
"I wanted to make history here," she said. "The Sydney Olympics were amazing, better than you could ever imagine. It taught me to deal with pressure.
"Now, I want to win gold at the next two Olympics &ndash; to match Debbie Flintoff-King&rsquo;s hurdles gold in 2004, and in 2008, I want to try to match the 400m gold that Cathy Freeman won.
"And if I don&rsquo;t do it, I&rsquo;m determined to go down trying.
"Here, I wanted to prove to myself, and to my coach, that the double could be done."
Yet such had been de Jong&rsquo;s breakthrough here in Santiago, what was supposed to be a comfortable gold run for Pittman on Saturday was turned into a gruelling battle to the line.
"We spoke on the podium. We want to take the rivalry on, into the seniors, to take the event on. Neither of us are good hurdlers &ndash; we could both improve by around 2sec just by better hurdling," Pittman said.
Pittman said that she had been especially impressed at the Olympics by the victory in the hurdles of Irina Privalova, the former 100 and 200-metre sprinter who took Sydney gold in only her eight 400 metres hurdles race.
"It shows that a sprint-strength based athlete will always win at hurdles. That&rsquo;s what Privalova is, and that&rsquo;s what I am. You can always improve your hurdles technique, but you can never develop speed or strength if you are not naturally talented with it."

Jana Pittman had no sooner completed an astonishing golden double of 400 metres and 400 metres hurdles at the World Junior Championships

Double gold winner Pittman aims to match Freeman

Women&#146;s heptathlon final 
Steven Downes for IAAF


20 October 2000 &#150; Carolina Kluft duly won the heptathlon gold medal here on
Saturday, setting the best mark of the year for a junior, 6056 points.

With three strong events on the second day &#150; 6.08 metres in the long jump, 42.00
metres in the javelin, and 2min 18.77sec for 800 metres &#150; the 

17-year-old broke her own Swedish junior record, and even came with 27 points of her
national senior record.

The silver medal was won by Lidiya Bashlykova, from Russia, with 5898, and
Finland&#146;s Sanna Saarman won the battle for bronze with 5707, her better 800m run
seeing her overhaul the seven-point advantage held by Barbora Spotakova, after six of the
seven events (Spotakova&#146;s final tally was 5689), with Jessica Zelinka setting a
Canadian junior record in fifth, just a single point behind the Czech.

To the delight of the partisan Chilean crowd, Valeria Steffens &#150; who eventually
finished 15th &#150; established her own national junior record with 5080.

Carolina Kluft duly won the heptathlon gold medal here on Saturday, setting the best mark of the year for a junior, 6056 points.

WORLD ATHLETICS U20 CHAMPIONSHIPS

Rural women promise upsurge for India

Men's pole vault final

Women's 4x100m relay final

Men's 4x100m relay final

Men's long jump final