2008 ÅF Golden League Review

The 2008 ÅF Golden League, which is part of the IAAF World Athletics Tour, saw the emergence of the Revelation of the Year 18-year-old Pamela Jelimo who became the third ever solo winner of the $1 million ÅF Golden League Jackpot. In the process the Kenyan wonder-girl set no fewer than three World Junior records in Berlin, Paris and Zürich.

Setting senior World records in the 2008 ÅF Golden League were Tirunesh Dibaba in Oslo, and Yelena Isinbayeva in Rome.

David Powell summarises the 2008 ÅF Golden League season…

Women continue to hold the upper hand in the Golden League as its 11th season boiled down to a last-meeting contest between Pamela Jelimo and Blanka Vlasic. After Vlasic missed the jackpot by an agonising margin for the second successive year, Jelimo became only the third solo winner of the sport’s biggest monetary prize.

Last year marked a reintroduction of the $1m jackpot for athletes winning at all six meetings. In 2006, the format had been changed with the $1m divided into two categories of $500,000 each. The first $500,000 was split between athletes winning designated events at all six meetings and the second $500,000 was shared between the undefeated athletes and those winning at five meetings.

It meant that, in 2006, six athletes shared in the $1m. In 2007, Sanya Richards of the United States (400m) and Russia’s Yelena Isinbayeva (Pole Vault) earned $500,000 each. But the perfect sporting climax was achieved in 2008 with a single winner emerging from a dramatic conclusion.

While a man has yet to win the $1m, the 18-year-old Jelimo, who began the season as an 800m novice, became the third woman to win it. She follows fellow 800m runner Maria Mutola from Mozambique (2003) and Russian triple jumper Tatyana Lebedeva (2005). The designated events for 2008 were: Men: 100m, 400m, 1500m, 400m Hurdles, Long  Jump, Javelin Throw; Women: 200m, 800m, 100m Hurdles, High Jump.

1 June
DKB-ISTAF (Berlin, Germany)

Pamela Jelimo arrived as she would mean to go on. The 18-year-old Kenyan, making her Golden League debut, won the women’s 800m by nearly four seconds, revealing her talents to a wider audience after victories at the African Championships in April and at the FBK Games, in Hengelo, in May.

Jelimo had no 800m form to speak of prior to this season and her previous greatest triumph was in taking the 400m title at the African Junior Championships in 2007. However, she began to show her hand at 800m by winning the Kenyan trial for the African Championships in 2:01.02 then the continental gold medal in 1:58.70.

Eight days before Berlin, Europe began to sit up and take notice as Jelimo set a World Junior record 1:55.76 to win in Hengelo. But the Golden League is the sport’s top table and a crowd of 67,124 was present at the Olympic Stadium for the season’s opener. Jelimo took to the occasion as if she was a regular diner.

Despite a blistering opening lap of 55.46 by pacemaker Tatyana Andrianova, Jelimo wasn’t impressed and she forged to the front at the bell. Although slowing in the last 100m, she reached the line in 1:54.99, the fastest time for 11 years. Not since Cuba’s Ana Quirot had clocked 1:54.82 in 1997 had a woman covered two laps so quickly.

It was the ninth quickest time by a woman, Jelimo’s second World Junior record in just over a week, an African senior record, and far too fast for Janeth Jepkosgei, the World champion. By the time Ukraine’s Yuliya Krevsun and Kenya’s Jepkosgei started to close it was all too late. Krevsun was second (1:58.98) and Jepkosgei third (1:59.13). Jekosgei was not alone among big names to start the jackpot roll with a losing ticket. Jeremy Wariner, the Olympic and World 400m champion, was beaten by his US team-mate, LaShawn Merritt in a race that would prove ominous for the Olympics. After a gripping battle, Merritt emerged victorious by 44.03 to Wariner’s 44.07.

Although not the newcomer Jelimo was, Merritt, at 21, still has a long career ahead of him. He knew that beating Wariner here would soon be forgotten and that, for lasting recognition, he would need to repeat it in Beijing. “I won this one but the big show is in a couple of months,” Merritt said.
It was only the fifth defeat suffered by Wariner in 43 races at 400m but there would be three more during the season – including the Olympic final – by Merritt. How wise Merritt’s words at the time seem now. “It’s a Golden League meet - great crowd, great stadium - but it’s not the last race we are going to compete in,” he said. “So I have just got to take it all in now and, by the next race, this race won’t be in my head.”

Another prospective jackpot contender to fall was Irving Saladino, the World champion in the Long Jump, who had been just as impressive in Hengelo as Jelimo had. With 8.73, he recorded the best mark in his event for 14 years and catapulted himself to No.7 all-time. It took Saladino’s unbeaten streak to 21 competitions.

But, struggling with a knee injury in Berlin, Saladino’s sequence came to an end, as he finished seventh. It is testimony to the Panamanian’s fortitude, though, that despite a six-week enforced lay-off – he did not return to compete until the Golden League round in Rome on 11 July – he should go on to triumph at the Olympics.

The Berlin victor was instead Saudi Arabia’s Hussein Al-Sabee who snatched a last round win with 8.21m. In another of the day’s upsets, Josephine Onyia, of Spain, defeated the World indoor record holder, Susanna Kallur, and World indoor champion Lolo Jones, in lowering the Spanish 100m Hurdles record to 12.50.

6 June
ExxonMobil Bislett Games (Oslo, Norway)

No World Junior 800m record for Pamela Jelimo – she set five in the season though not tonight – but there was one for Abubaker Kaki. Yet even this was not the highlight of the second round of the 2008 Golden League season. For the second year in succession, this meeting witnessed a women’s 5000m World record.

Last year it was Meseret Defar who obliterated the mark with 14:16.63. Beating her own year-old mark by 7.90sec, Defar’s margin of improvement was the biggest since the Zola Budd/Ingrid Kristiansen rivalries of the mid 1980s when over 10sec was wiped off the record on two occasions. Now Tirunesh Dibaba would take another 5.48sec off it in one lump.

As the record passed from one Ethiopian to another, Dibaba added weight to the argument that she should be regarded as the greatest woman distance runner of all-time. Already in 2008, she had won a fifth individual World Cross Country title and a golden 5000/10,000m double at the Olympic Games, in Beijing, would nail the case for her to be regarded as the greatest.

Prior to this year, Dibaba’s other conquests included  a 5000/10,000m double at the 2005 World Championships, the retention of her 25-lap title in Osaka last year, the 2003 World Championships 5000m gold medal, and an indoor 5000m World record. Now she has the outdoor record. “I’ve been thinking about this for a long time and this is a very special day for me,” she said.

Taken through 3000m in 8:38.38 by pacesetter Anna Alminova, Dibaba found herself in the lead but three seconds off record pace. With a little help from big sister Ejegayehu for about a lap-and-a-half, Dibaba found her rhythm by the time she approached the end of the fourth kilometre (11:28.44). By then she was a full second ahead of schedule, and simply needed to hang on. She closed with a 63.99 final circuit to collect the first outdoor record of her career.

The Sudanese Kaki against the World Junior and newly-crowned African senior 800m champion, David Rudisha, from Kenya, had immense potential as a contest and did not disappoint. Rudisha dwarfed the slightly-built Kaki and, down the back straight on the second lap, looked poised to attack.

Kaki, though, pulled clear and held his ground to win in 1:42.69 – the first sub 1:43 run for five years. His time removed the World Junior mark of 1:43.64 set by the Kenyan Japheth Kimutai in Zürich in 1997. Always seemingly in control, the trouble started for Kaki after the race when he was unable to find his kit. Rudisha finished second in a personal best 1:43.72.

Jelimo made it two Golden League wins out of two, her 1:55.41 seeing her home 3.48sec clear of her nearest challenger - and also staying in the hunt for the jackpot were Spain’s  Josephine Onyia (100m Hurdles), Croatia’s Blanka Vlasic (High Jump),  Bershawn Jackson of the United States (400m Hurdles) and Saudi Arabia’s Hussein Al-Sabee (Long Jump).

Vlasic made it 51 weeks without defeat. Returning to the venue of her last loss, to Yelena Slesarenko, on 15 June 2007, she jumped a season’s best 2.04. “I’m here to repair some damage from last year,” Vlasic had said on the eve of the competition. Damage fixed. It was Vlasic’s 26th victory in succession.

In other highlights, Jeremy Wariner won the 400m in the absence of LaShawn Merritt, his conqueror in Berlin, and Andy Baddeley won the Dream Mile with the best time by a British runner for 20 years (3:49.38).

11 July
Golden Gala Kinder+Sport (Rome, Italy)

Isinbayeva snatched her pole and, figuratively speaking, stuck it between the eyes of Jenn Stuczynski. The American, having recently cleared 4.92 at the United States Olympic trials, while Yelena Isinbayeva had appeared to stagnate, had got the Russian in her sights. And Isinbayeva didn’t like it.

Motivated by anger, Isinbayeva set her 22nd World record in the women’s Pole Vault. Russia’s Olympic, World and European champion, jumped 5.03m to beat by 2cm the mark of 5.01 she had held since 2005.

Isinbayeva set the record in her first outdoor meeting of the year. The 4.92m Area record set by Stuczynski had, for the second time this year, following her 4.90m Area record in May, called into question whether Isinbayeva had long to last as World No.1. “When Stuczynski jumped 4.90 then 4.92, it made me so angry because everyone started to say ‘Isinbayeva is finished, we have a new star’,” the World record holder said. “It made me angry and I am happy for that feeling because I didn’t feel it enough since my last World record.”

It had taken only one month short of three years for Isinbayeva to improve her outdoor World record but she would do it again later in the month (5.04 in Monaco) and at the Olympics (5.05) where Stuczynski would take the silver medal but 25cm lower than the Russian.

In the countdown to the jackpot, halfway was reached with only two athletes – Pamela Jelimo and Blanka Vlasic – still counting. Three contenders - Josephine Onyia, Bershawn Jackson and Hussein Al-Sabee – were counted out.

Jelimo was a runaway winner once again. She won by 3.05sec, in 1:55.69, from fellow Kenyan Janeth Jepkosgei, a fourth victory in four races this season against the World champion. Vlasic won the High Jump with a relatively modest 2.00m but it was her 29th consecutive competition over two metres and her 32nd successive victory.

The return to the Long Jump of Panama’s Irving Saladino, after a six-week absence through a knee injury, put an end to the jackpot hopes of Saudi Arabia’s Al-Sabee. Saladino’s first-round effort of 8.30m was enough to take the victory. Al-Sabee, with 8.08, had to settle for third behind compatriot Mohamed Salman Al Khuwailidi (8.22).

Onyia fell heavily from her perch as she finished sixth in the 100m Hurdles. The Spaniard ran reasonably well - 12.85sec - but it was a night for the Jamaicans as Brigitte Foster-Hylton (12.60) and Delloreen Ennis-London (12.62) filled the top two places. Onyia paid the penalty for a poor start and clattering the last hurdle.

In the men’s 400m Hurdles, Jackson looked poised to maintain his jackpot interest as he was catching leader Danny McFarlane, of Jamaica, coming off the last flight. But World champion Kerron Clement had the measure of the field and pulled away for victory – 48.23 to 48.34 – with McFarlane third.

After defeats by LaShawn Merrit in Berlin, and at the United States Olympic trials in Eugene, Jeremy Wariner struck back. But it was a tense finish as the Olympic and World champion recorded 44.36 to the runner-up’s 44.37.

Although she was nowhere near the World record time she had set in Oslo, Tirunesh Dibaba won the 5000m and Kerron Stewart underlined her status as an emerging world force in women’s sprinting with her first Golden League victory. Stewart beat Sanya Richards to win the 200m (22.34) within a fortnight of her dazzling display at the Jamaican Olympic trials, in Kingston, where she recorded 10.80 to win the 100m and 21.99 to finish 2nd in the 200m.

18 July
Meeting Gaz de France (Paris, France)

There was no sign of either of the two remaining jackpot contenders, Pamela Jelimo and Blanka Vlasic, suffering a defeat as the fourth of the six Golden League meetings unfolded in the Stade de France. Jelimo was as dominant as she had been all season, lowering the World Junior 800m record for the third time and the African record for the second time. Vlasic, with her 33rd straight win, was the only woman over two metres in the High Jump.

Whereas once the names of Janeth Jepkosgei and Maria Mutola would have represented a fearful presence on the start line, the Kenyan and Mozambican were by now bit-part players in the Jelimo stage show. Jelimo, with her typically aggressive tactics, never looked under threat, cutting loose with 500m remaining and blasting her way towards the line in 1:54.97
For much of the field it was a curious night. Imagine setting a personal best yet seeing the winner far ahead. This was the feeling experienced by four athletes – Slovakia’s Lucia Klocova (2nd, 1:58.51), Poland’s Anna Rostkowska (4th, 1:58.72), home runner Eloidie Guegan (5th, 1:58.93) and Britain’s Jennifer Meadows (6th, 1:59.11). Jepkosgei was 3rd, Mutola 7th.

Vlasic looked less immovable than Jelimo. Although she won by four centimetres from Germany’s Ariane Friedrich, the Croatian failed twice at 2.01 before a successful third attempt. Friedrich (1.97) was beaten now but she would return to mug Vlasic of half a million dollars in the final Golden League meeting in Brussels.

A meeting record by Cuba’s Dayron Robles in the 110m Hurdles and a meeting record and World leading mark from American Jeremy Wariner were the other highlights. Five weeks after breaking the World record with 12.87 in Ostrava, Robles was just one-hundredth slower, his 12.88 equalling the previous World record held by Liux Xiang, from China.

Wariner reasserted his authority over the pretender to his Olympic 400m title, LaShawn Merritt. Dwelling in the blocks in his poorest start of the season, the World and Olympic champion was the more fluent of the world’s two best quarter milers, and on the back-straight smoothly made up the gap opened by his opponents. This time there was to be no shoulder to shoulder battle to the line with Merritt. Wariner recorded 43.86, with Merrit second in 44.35.

“I wanted to come out here and make a statement today,” Wariner said. He was not referring directly to his growing rivalry with Merritt, but the meaning of his remark could hardly have been taken any other way. Merritt had inflicted high profile back-to-back defeats on Wariner this season.

For a close finish, spectators had to look no further than the women’s 200m in which Sanya Richards prevailed. Richards came home in 22.56 in a blanket finish for the top three places, with the winner’s fellow Americans, Carmelita Jeter (22.58) and Muna Lee (22.59) taking second and third.

World champion in the Long Jump, Irving Saladino underlined his return to form with a winning 8.31 in the fourth round, more than enough to beat the Saudi pairing of runner-up Hussein Taher Al Sabee (8.25) and third-placed Mohamed Al Khuwalidi (8.09). The men’s Javelin saw Latvia’s Vadim Vasilevskis snatch a last-round victory with 85.61 from Jarred Bannister, of Australia, who had led with 84.76 from his opening throw.

29 August
Weltklasse (Zürich, Switzerland)

He may not have made his mark thus far in the 2008 Golden League but all that was about to change. Usain Bolt arrived in Zürich travelling only from Beijing but, judging by the interest in him, you would think he had landed from another planet. The man who had won three gold medals and set three World records at the Olympics in China earlier in the month did not disappoint a capacity 26,000 crowd in the Letzigrund Stadium.

After his World record 9.69 for the 100m in Beijing, it would have been too much to hope for improvement by Bolt on that – even though the Jamaican had begun to ease up 10 metres from the line in his Olympic final. But, despite a cold and recording the slowest reaction time in the field, Bolt delivered a popular victory in 9.83. It was another unchallenged display as Walter Dix, of the United States, was the only other sprinter to break 10sec (9.99).

Pamela Jelimo and Blanka Vlasic returned to the task of trying to preserve their Golden League jackpot involvement through to the final meeting in Brussels. The $1m contest having been reduced to just the two of them after the other remaining contenders lost in Rome, both won in Paris but then went on to experience contrasting fortunes in Beijing. Jelimo was in record-breaking form again – setting World junior and African senior marks in taking the gold medal – but Vlasic was beaten.  

Whatever happened to the rule of thumb that athletes tend to experience a low after the high of a glorious Olympics? And the additional challenge for those competing in Zürich, on top of the physical and mental fatigue, was the overcoming of jetlag in flying from China to Europe.

Perhaps Jelimo was still too young and raw – remember that this was the 18-year-old’s first season on the international circuit – to have heard of such a rule. Jelimo just went out and carried on where she had left off, setting her fifth World junior and fourth African senior record of the season.

Recording 1:54.01, Jelimo moved into third place on the all-time list with only World record holder Jarmila Kartochvilova of Czechoslovakia (1:53.28) and the Soviet Union’s Nadezhda Olizarenko (1:53.43) ahead of her. Maria Mutola, the former Olympic and multiple World champion, chose this meeting for her retirement race at 35 and saw the future – Jelimo stretched out ahead of her.

The Olympic champion enjoyed the assistance of Beijing fourth-placer, Svetlana Klyuka, as a pacemaker as she pulled the Kenyan through 400m in 55.66. Instead of her familiar attack down the back straight, Jelimo waited until 200m to go before launching a sustained attack for the line.

One other record fell to Jelimo and, as a figurative passing of the baton, it was one taken out of the hands of Mutola. The Mozambican, 12 times a winner in Zürich, finished fourth in a race which saw her Weltklasse meeting record set in 1994 fall to Jelimo. Mutola’s 1:55.19, still her personal best, fittingly was erased by the Kenyan.

“My last race, it’s not easy to take, knowing that I have to put the spikes away,” Mutola said. “But I’m so happy that I did it in Zürich and that I ran under two minutes again. Zürich has been good to me – I have won 12 races here and the crowd is very supportive."

Vlasic had to settle for Olympic silver in China despite jumping 2.05. Belgium’s Tia Hellebaut had taken the gold, ending the Croatian’s 34-meeting win streak. “It was nice to see that I could win again,” the World champion said after her 2.01m victory. “The result wasn’t important tonight. Only the victory was. I’m glad I’m still in the running for the jackpot.” How would she feel in Brussels seven days later?

In other highlights, the extraordinary Kenenisa Bekele set a season’s leading mark at 5000m of 12:50.18 straight from a 5000m/10,000m double triumph in Beijing, double Olympic champion Andreas Thorkildsen, from Norway, surpassed 90 metres (90.26) to win the Javelin, and there were belated victories for Jeremy Wariner (400m), Lolo Jones (100m Hurdles), Allyson Felix (200m) and Sanya Richards (400m), all four having lost in Beijing.

5 September
Belgacom Memorial Van Damme (Brussels, Belgium)

Two women, one jackpot. 47.000 spectators, one goodbye. The night’s athletics in the King Baudouin was divided into two distinct emotional dramas. On the one hand, Pamela Jelimo’s $1m windfall and Blanka Vlasic’s financial crash. On the other hand, the retirement of Kim Gevaert in front of her home crowd.

At the beginning of the year, it was probably a million dollars-to-one shot that an unheard-of 18-year-old with no known form at 800m would end the summer season as the outright winner of the sport’s single biggest prize. Six Golden League victories later – with Olympic and African titles thrown in for good measure – Jelimo was the richest kid in Kenya.

Jelimo guaranteed herself at least a half share by winning her final Golden League race in the same conclusive way she had triumphed in the previous five. Following pacemaker Svetlana Klyuka to 550m, when the Russian stepped aside Jelimo disappeared off into the distance, crossing the line in a meeting record 1:55.16, 3.69sec clear of  World champion and runner-up Janeth Jepkosgei.

The other half a million dollars was now outside of her control but Vlasic was about to leave a charity box at her door. Jelimo had to wait for the outcome of the High Jump before knowing the size of her jackpot and Vlasic was struggling. Even at 1.94, Vlasic needed three attempts to clear. Germany’s Ariane Friedrich cleared on her first attempt, Olympic champion Tia Hellebaut on her second.

At 1.97, Friedrich again went clear with her first leap, with Vlasic needing two. Much to the delight of the sell-out crowd, Belgium’s Olympic champion, Hellebaut, stayed alive with a third attempt clearance. At two metres, Freidrich and Vlasic cleared with their second tries, with Hellebaut again clearing on her third. All failed at 2.02, leaving Vlasic the runner-up and empty-handed.

For Vlasic it was an opposite but equally agonising experience as last year. In 2007 she was beaten in the first Golden League meeting of the season, in Oslo, before going on to win in Paris, Rome, Zürich, Brussels and Berlin. As in Brussels now, in Oslo she was second, beaten by Russia’s then Olympic champion, Yelena Slesarenko.

“I sympathise with her, but that is the nature of this sport,” Jelimo said of her beaten jackpot opponent. “Today you lose, but tomorrow you can do your best and be a winner again. And that is what I wish for her.” For Jelimo, the daughter of a single mother who struggled to raise nine children, a portion of the money was earmarked for her siblings’ education.

Gevaert would like to start with one child. In announcing three days before the Olympics began that she would retire at the end of the season, Gevaert had said: “I want children and, at my age, I had better not wait too long.” She is hardly a veteran, though, only 30. But she leaves the sport with a considerable career record.

Among her finest achievements were her 100/200m double at the 2006 European Championships and 4x100m medals with Belgium in the 2007 World Championships and 2008 Olympics. Here, between standing ovations, she won the 100m, albeit in a modest 11.25. Typical of her good nature, she said: “I would have felt guilty if I hadn’t won.”

After former World record holder, Asafa Powell, had admitted the day before that “maybe I’m just a guy for the circuit”, he wasn’t even that on this occasion. Fifth in the Olympic 100m final, Powell again saw the back of Usain Bolt as his compatriot won in 9.77, despite again being the slowest out of the blocks, as he had in Zürich. Powell had to settle for second place in 9.83.

IAAF