Jelimo - really starting something

Here’s the bad news for women 800m runners: Pamela Jelimo has only just begun. Only just begun winning titles. Only just begun breaking records. Only just begun a new era for Kenyan women’s athletics.

At the age of 18 it’s hardly surprising that Jelimo is looking to the future. But after winning Olympic gold on Monday, improving her African Area and World junior record, the astonishing teenager wasted little time in setting her sights on the next big goal.

In just four months of competing at 800 metres she has run 11 races, broken four World junior records, three African records, won an African championships title, and now taken the Olympic gold – the lifelong dream of so many athletes throughout long, long careers.

It took Kelly Holmes, the 2004 champion, three Olympics and years of heartache to get there. And yet Jelimo has done it in her first year as an international at her first senior championships. What more could she want?

“The Olympic record?” she says. “For sure. I know that I have the talent to do that. It’s something we’ve been aiming for in Kenya and I think that with more effort, it’s something we can do it.”

“I am looking forward now. As we proceed and do better training, I think that I can do better.”

No more ‘out of this world’

The women’s World 800m record – of 1:53.28 by Jarmila Kratochvilova in 1983 – has long been regarded as one of those “untouchable” achievements, a set of figures that just sits there at the top of the start lists, year after year, because few people ever come close to it. But with the meteoric rise of Jelimo, a rise from complete obscurity to the pinnacle of international success, that ‘out of this world��� mark has started to come back into orbit.

Jelimo’s winning time in Beijing of 1:54.87 was the ninth fastest ever, and makes her the sixth fastest two-lap runner in history. She also claimed the honour of being the first woman from Kenya to win an Olympic title as she set the National Stadium alight with a stunning last lap of 59.46 and led her friend and compatriot, Janeth Jepkosgei, the 2007 World champion, to a Kenyan one-two.

Her record-setting potential apart, that achievement in itself marks the beginning of a new era, a kind of coming of age for Kenya’s women athletes who have often lived in the shadow of their male counterparts.

“I can see the focus might shift now more to women”

Wilson Kipketer, the Kenyan-born Dane who holds the men’s 800m World record, believes it’s this that makes the emergence of Jelimo and Jepkosgei so exciting for Kenyan athletics.

Speaking in London just a few weeks ago, Kipketer talked about this new female duo who have taken the female version of his old event by storm over the last two seasons.

“It’s great to see Kenyan women coming to greatness now,” he said. “These women can be around for a long time. We have had great marathon runners like Catherine Ndereba and Tegla Loroupe but Jepkosgei and Jelimo now are coming up behind them.

“It’s interesting because I can see the focus might shift now more to women than to the men in Kenya. If you look at records, Kenyan men have been breaking records for years, but not the women. Now is their chance.”

For Kipketer the emergence of Jelimo and her teammate also has a social significance that may reflect a shift in Kenyan society. “In the past,” he says, “Kenyan women would mostly go and compete and then go back to Kenya. But now some are staying in Europe to train, and they have their own training camps in Kenya.”

“This is the start of a change in Kenya, where they no longer have to be a mother, or stay in the family. So these women are really starting something, they are becoming more like professional athletes.”

Victory dedicated to mother

It’s fitting, then, that Jelimo dedicated her Beijing gold medal to her mother, Rodah Jeptoo Keter, a widow and former amateur runner herself who has played a major part in encouraging her daughter’s progress.

“During her time there was no motivation to be in sports,” Jelimo says. “So she used to encourage me when I got down about my form and progress. She always told me I would do better. She’s the reason I’m able to be the best.”

In fact her mother used to run 200 and 400m, just as Jelimo did in Koyo Secondary school, where she started running aged 13 in 2003. The school’s in Kapsabet, the cradle of Kenyan 800m runners, home not only of Jepkosgei, but of Wilfred Bungei and Wilson Kipketer too. “They all hail from my area, so I have many role models to look up to,” she says.

Clearly talented, by 2004 the young Jelimo, the fourth of nine children, had reached her local provincial championships running 400m. In 2005 she qualified for the nationals at both 200 and 400, but then didn’t run in 2006 because it was her final year of school.

400 to 800 - “I took some persuading and it was hard to change”

Last year she returned to the track and in July was selected for Kenya’s African junior team for Ouagadougou. She won gold at 400m in 54.93 and set a new national junior record for the 200m of 24.68.

Jelimo had always thought of herself as a sprinter, and this success only encouraged that view. But her coach, Zaid Aziz, suggested she should change, and her mother and Jepkosgei played a part in persuading her to give the two laps a try.

“They told me that I can do better at 800 than 200 and 400,” she says. “I took some persuading and it was hard to change. But I didn’t give up. I trained and trained, and as things went on I found that I got better.”

By then she had joined the Kenya Police Force and was training with Jepkosgei, the recently crowned world champion. Between September 2007 and January 2008 their tough training alternated between Embu and Kapsabet.

Then, on 19 April 2008 in Nairobi, she lined up for her first 800m race at the Kenyan African championship trials. She clocked 2:01.02 to gain selection for Addis Ababa. Then in Ethiopia’s capital she coasted to the final, where she lined up against the Mozambique legend, Maria Mutola.

Mutola – “I have never seen anything like her”

Most 18-year-olds would’ve been terrified. Not Jelimo. After winning in 1:58.70, an incredible time at altitude, she was finally converted to the 800m. “I was running in an event which I did not even think was mine and to win the heat gave me morale,” Jelimo said. “When I beat Mutola in the final, I was overjoyed.”

“It was a morale booster and meant a lot to me. It was the start of a new journey in my life.”

Mutola, left gasping in second place, couldn’t believe it. “She is something else. I have never seen anything like her,” she said.

Four months, 11 races and an Olympic gold later, the world is now saying the same thing.

Matthew Brown for the IAAF