Women's 60m - Gevaert (nearest) heads Jones (© Getty Images)
As Kim Gevaert crossed the 60m finish line ahead of Marion Jones at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham on 20 February a look of sheer bewilderment was etched upon her face. It was much the same when she lost control of her Toyota on the Brussels ring road two weeks previously.
"I had to avoid someone and I hit the railings," Gevaert reflected in the aftermath of her stunning success in the Norwich Union Grand Prix. "I lost control completely. My car overturned and that was really scary. It was like riding a rollercoaster. You don't know if you're going to get out okay. At the moment the car turned upside down, and I was lying there, I thought someone was going to hit me and I was going to die.”
“I'm very lucky. If not, I wouldn't be standing here now. I managed to get out safely. My back was a bit sore, but there was no real physical damage."
That much was evident in the fast lanes of the National Indoor Arena. The Belgian sprinter known in her homeland as La Gazelle de Kamoenhout sped to a famous victory, inflicting the first defeat in two years and five months upon Jones, the triple Olympic gold medallist. Jones might be on her way back from motherhood but she willingly placed herself and her reputation on the line in Birmingham and was unable to keep up with the woman who rode her luck on the Brussels peripherique and lived to tell the tale.
Gevaert is as eloquent in conversation as she is graceful in high speed movement upon the track. She was an award-winning classical pianist before her older brother, Marlon, introduced her to athletics at the age of 15. She has a degree in speech therapy and speaks English with fluency and erudition.
At track-side in Birmingham, Gevaert's manager, Wilfred Meert, spoke of her own "superstar" status back home. "She's hugely popular in Belgium," he said. "She's intelligent. She's good looking. She's a popular guest on talk shows." Gevaert herself blanched at the description. "'Superstar' is not a word I would choose," she said. "Obviously, we are a small country. We do not have so many successful sports people, so when we have someone they get a lot of attention."
Gevaert became the centre of Belgian attention in 2002, when she won the 60m at the European Indoor Championships in Vienna and took silver medals over 100m and 200m at the outdoor European Championships in Munich. Last summer she failed to venture beyond the semi-finals of the 100m and 200m at the IAAF World Championships in Paris. This winter, though, the 25-year-old is making a marked impression at global level.
Gevaert's winning time in Birmingham, 7.13sec, equalled the Belgian record she set in Karlsruhe on 15 February and, in addition to finishing 0.03sec ahead of Jones, she also took the scalp of the last woman to beat the American, Zhana Block of the Ukraine, who will not defend her World Indoor title in Budapest next weekend.
The Belgian - who lives at Steenokkerzeel, near Brussels airport - is unbeaten this winter. Her 7.13 personal best timing stands her in sixth position behind Russia’s Yuliya Tabakova who leads this season’s world indoor list (7.06), and close on the heels of the Americans Gail Devers (7.10) and Torri Edwards (7.12).
Of course, she also has her new-found status as the conqueror of the USA’s golden girl. "For someone like me, it's very scary thing to beat Marion Jones," Geveart said. "It was almost surreal to be ahead of her in the race. I'm just pleased that I managed to stay calm and not be too intimidated by her."
For that stability of temperament, Gevaert had Denise Lewis to thank. Lewis' partner, the Belgian sprinter Patrick Stevens, shares the same coach as Gevaert, Rudi Diels. The pair have become firm friends and Gevaert visited the Birmingham-based heptathlete on the eve of the Norwich Union Grand Prix after discovering with some trepidation that she had been drawn to run in the lane next to Jones. "Denise calmed me down," she said. But how precisely? "Oh, just by being her happy self," Gevaert elaborated.
Gevaert has been her happy self since her Birmingham victory, though anxious to play down expectation back home in the run up to the 10th IAAF World Indoor Championships in Budapest, Hungary (5-7 March).
No Belgian athlete has ever won a gold medal at the IAAF World Indoor Championships and there have only been three medallists in all - Regine Berg (silver at 400m in 1985), Ronald Desruelles (bronze at 60m in 1985) and Mohammed Mourhit (silver at 3000m in 2001).
"I'll just try to go there in a relaxed way," Gevaert said. "I don't want to put too much pressure on myself."
