Youssef Saad Kamel of Bahrain sets a new World leading time to win the B 800m race in Zurich Golden League (© Getty Images)
Further complicating the pre-Athens picture in the wildly unpredictable men's 800 was Bahraini Youssef Saad Kamel's surprise win in the 'B' race here, with his stunning short-lived 1:43.11 world-leading effort.
But his powerful win at tonight's TDK Golden League meeting certainly shouldn't have come as that big a surprise. After all, remarkable "B" race efforts are nothing new in Zurich, and secondly, as the son of two-time World champion Billy Konchellah, the 21-year-old Kamel - the former Kenyan Gregory Konchellah - has the genetic makeup for superb 800 metre racing.
Yet the soft-spoken Kamel admits that he was indeed extremely surprised.
"I was not really ready to run the race, so I just came to run," Kamel admitted.
Did he feel physically or mentally unprepared?
"It was more mental. I was feeling very cowardly. I really feared these guys and I feared the race. This is the first time I've ever run in a big meeting, a Golden League meeting. I was only a pace maker once before. I was very nervous."
As he powered to the lead heading into the final turn, his fear certainly didn't show.
"With 200 metres to go, I was feeling very strong, and one of the guys was pushing me. It was a different race for me. In the first 200 I'm usually very slow, but here some guys pushed me, so that was the race."
When he turned to the clock after his victory bow, he found his time - 1:43.11 - more than a full second faster than he'd ever run before (1:44.51), as unbelievable as it was to the capacity crowd at Letzigrund Stadium.
"I just said, 'Oh my God. Thank God. I was not expecting at all to run that fast."
Does a world leading performance change his outlook as his first Olympic appearance approaches?
"Right now, I hope that I'll be top three. But just running in the final will be nice." But wise beyond his 21 years, he adds, "But you know, running is like this: today you're good, tomorrow you're not so good. So I cannot make any predictions."
As unlikely as it may seem, an Olympic appearance was something he never would have predicted just two years ago.
"I started running [seriously] just last year. When I was a young boy, I really hated running. As a schoolboy, teachers made me run in school races, but I never enjoyed it."
In late November 2002, a telephone call from marathoner Moses Tanui changed the direction of his life.
"He called me and said I should go and run with, that he thought I would be good," he said. "So I started training with him and I was very fast." Now, he said, he follows some of the same training programs his father used.
"He gave me some of the programs he used to do, and sometimes I follow those."
With a world-leading win in the "B" race, was he trying to send a message to training partner, Wilfred Bungei, who he (briefly, as it later turned out) supplanted as the year's fastest?
"Oh no, I think, and I hope Wilfred will run faster. I like him very much because he is my training partner, and my friend. Many times he gives me very good advice. I really hope he runs 1:42 or 1:41."
And just a couple of hours later Wilfried Bungei did run faster as he took 5 hundredths of a second off Kamel’s world leading time as he won the "A" race in 1:43.06.
Besides the usual aches and pains, Kamel said he's feeling fine as he prepares for Athens. "Just the normal pains that each and every athlete has, but nothing serious. Everything, thankfully, is just fine. I just hope it stays that way."
Bob Ramsak for the IAAF
NOTE - Youssef Saad Kamel is currently ranked number 18 in the 800m IAAF Event World Ranking.
