体坛英语新闻：Olympic 800m race champion Jelimo promises comeback

NAIROBI, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- After two years of numerous false starts, Olympic 800m women champion Pamela Jelimo, has nothing to look forward to but feel helpless, just like a withered flower.

At 18, she blossomed to reign in the two-lap race too soon and paid the penalty for it, the ultimate nightmare of any sportsman; succumb to injuries.

Jelimo has seen cruel injuries trim her wings as she has failed to display the same power, speed and endurance that lend a hand to her cruise to the top of the world and clinch the lucrative IAAF Golden League jackpot and the Olympic gold medal in 2008.

Many have since written her off. But they are not to blame. For an athlete who was primed to represent the future of Kenya in the two-lap race, there can be no explanation to warrant her failure to dominate in the competition at just 21 years.

But off-track problems - a career threatening knee injury, for example - and a series of other niggling opportunistic injuries and the expectation of unrelenting public have taken the wind out of Jelimo’s sails.

Janeth Jepkosgei victory in Osaka World Championships in July 2007 was described as the best for Kenya. However, it is the emergence of Jelimo that has caught the world’s imagination.

Seemingly out of the blues, Jelimo decimated the field that included former world champion Maria Mutola of Mozambique, Jepkosgei, Kenia Sinclair of Jamaica to be crowned the Olympic Champion in Beijing Olympic Games.