NAIROBI, (Reuters) – Olympic 800 metres women’s champion Pamela Jelimo will miss the Kenyan national championships this week which will automatically preclude her from the world championships starting in Daegu, South Korea, next month.
The 22-year-old has never recovered her phenomenal 2008 form when she won the Olympic and African titles, set a world junior record of one minutes 54.01 seconds and collected the $1 million Golden League jackpot.
“Pamela has not been running well lately and once she skips the national championships, there is no way we can consider her for the world championships,” Athletics Kenya secretary general David Okeyo said yesterday.
Jelimo’s manager Barnabas Korir told Reuters she had suffered a series of injuries “and other matters which I cannot discuss in public”.
Olympic champion Nancy Jebet Lagat (1,500) and world champions Vivian Cheruiyot (5,000) and Lineth Masai (10,000) are among the contenders in the women’s field.
World 800 metres record holder and 2010 world athlete of the year David Rudisha and Olympic 1,500 champion Asbel Kiprop will head the men’s competition along with some of the world’s top steeplechasers in world champion Ezekiel Kemboi, Olympic bronze medallist Richard Mateelong and Paul Kipsiele Koech.
