News12 Dec 2009


2009 ÅF Golden League Review

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All gold: Yelena Isinbayeva, Kenenisa Bekele and Sanya Richards (© Getty Images)

With the introduction of the IAAF Diamond League in 2010, its predecessor the IAAF Golden League which in the last few years has been title sponsored by ÅF, the Swedish technical consulting group - and has also had TDK and Ericsson in that title role during in its history - has seen its last race run, its last jump executed, its last hurdle cleared, and its last throw released.

The Memorial Van Damme meeting in the Belgian capital on Friday 4 September closed out the twelfth and final year of Golden League competition, a European series of one-day meetings which has had the US$1Million Jackpot as its centre piece.

David Powell summarises the 2009 ÅF Golden League season...

The short but sweet life of the IAAF Golden League ended in Brussels on 4 September when Sanya Richards, Yelena Isinbayeva and Kenenisa Bekele shared in the final $1m jackpot payout. The Golden League, begun in 1998, will give way to the IAAF Diamond League in 2010 after 12 years as the main shop window of international circuit athletics.

Next year the series of six one-day European meetings will be replaced by a 14-meeting global tour. During its existence the Golden League has attracted 2.5million stadium spectators, a 1.2 billion TV audience, and 15,000 hours of TV programming. On its final day, United States 400m star Sanya Richards secured her place among the greatest performers in Golden League history.

Richards became only the third athlete to take a share in the jackpot on three or more occasions. Unbeaten during the 2006, 2007 and 2009 GL seasons, Richards matched US 100m runner Marion Jones in 1998, 2001 and 2002. The most successful participant has been Morocco’s Hicham El Guerrouj (1500m/Mile) who claimed four jackpot shares (1998, 2000, 2001, 2002) and is one of only three athletes to have broken more than one senior World record at Golden League meetings.

El Guerrouj set two World records, as did Norwegian javelin thrower Trine Hattestad. Top of the list is Isinbayeva, who set three World records in the Pole Vault. Isinbayeva’s fellow Russian, Tatyana Lebedeva is one of three athletes – all women – to win the $1m jackpot outright. Lebedeva scooped in the Triple Jump (2005) preceded and followed by two 800m runners, Maria Mutola of Mozambique (2003) and Pamela Jelimo of Kenya (2008)  

14 June
DKB-ISTAF
Berlin, Germany

The dream was beautiful while it lasted. But, for Ariane Friedrich, a magnificent start to the Golden League season would ultimately prove to be no more than that.  A women’s German national outdoor High Jump record, erasing Heike Henkel’s longstanding mark, and a victory over indoor and outdoor World champion, Blanka Vlasic, raised the bar of expectation in the country where the World Championships were to take place nine weeks later.

However, Friedrich would not be alone in leaving Berlin’s Olympic Stadium visualising a gold medal at the same venue later in the season only to be disappointed. Yelena Isinbayeva set a meeting record and World leading mark for a routine victory in the women’s Pole Vault yet there would be nothing routine about her performance here come August.

Friedrich defeated Vlasic for the third time this year. In clearing 2.06 she add one centimetre to the national outdoor mark set by Henkel in winning the 1991 World title. Both Friedrich and Vlasic, who had cleared 2.03, attempted to equal Stefka Kostadinova’s World record of 2.09, set in 1987, and although both failed it was the German who came closer with a tantalisingly close second attempt. The crowd of 63,896 gasped at the brilliance of the effort.

Friedrich performed for her home crowd with the voltage of a rock queen, exciting the fans, putting on a show, and finishing it off with a lap of honour carrying the German flag. Vlasic might have known she would have a fight on her hands as she sought to pick up the pieces of two successive championship defeats – runner-up at the Beijing Olympics and equal fifth in the European Indoors – and a 2008 Golden League campaign in which she had been denied a share of the $1m jackpot with defeat on the last night.

Here, though, Vlasic was out of the $1m race on the opening afternoon. Not that she would be worrying about that as she retained her World title in Berlin. And Friedrich? The Berlin Olympic Stadium was less kind to her at the World Championships, although not entirely inhospitable. A bronze medal behind Vlasic and Russia’s Anna Chicherova was a warmly applauded consolation for missing the top prize.

As well as Nadine Kleinert’s victory in the women’s Shot Put (19.39) was received it was not backed by the deafening reaction which greeted Friedrich’s triumph. However, like Friedrich, Kleinert would be denied gold at the World Championships, taking silver behind New Zealand’s Valerie Vili. On the other hand, Robert Harting, third at Istaf (66.17) behind Gerd Kanter of Estonia (67.88) and the Pole, Piotr Malachowski (67.70), would take World Championships gold.

Isinbayeva, in her first outdoor appearance of 2009, cleared 4.83. She was thus quick to assume pole position while the vaulting Poles, Monika Pyrek and Anna Rogowska, were second and third, clearing 4.78 and 4.68 respectively.

Kenenisa Bekele returned to form in the 5000m but looked some way short of his best. Having dropped out of the 1500m, in Hengelo, two weeks earlier, he won a tactical race in 13:00.76, defeating Kenya’s Abraham Chebii, who ran 13:01.08.

Bekele had not been in top shape since a calf injury sustained last November in a road race in the Netherlands. "I had to work really hard for the victory," the multiple World and Olympic champion said. Like an opening batsman struggling in single figures before going on to make a century, Bekele’s early-season wobbles would soon give way to rock solid immovability.

In the women’s 400m Sanya Richards got her $1m chase under way, dominating in 49.57 and leaving the rest of the field a long way back. Richards, like Isinbayeva, with whom she shared the 2007 jackpot, now had the first of her six wins needed to share in this season’s prize.

In the other main highlight of the 68th edition of this meeting, Kenya’s Commonwealth Games 5000m champion, Augustine Choge, ran the World’s fastest 1500m since 2006 (3:29.47).

3 July
Exxon Mobil Bislett Games
Oslo, Norway

Looking into the Golden League mirror, Sanya Richards is accustomed to seeing only her own reflection – the image of a winner. Looking into the Olympic and World Championships mirrors, Richards sees something different - the haunting shadow of Christine Ohuruogu. Will the hall of mirrors be different this year?

Coming into this season, Richards’ consistency on the Golden League circuit had given way to defeat in her biggest race of each year – the World Championships of 2005 and the 2008 Olympic Games.  Now, again, Richards is proving invincible on the Golden League tour, and Ohuruogu, the World and Olympic champion, cannot get near her. That’s the story so far in 2009.

Here Richards extended her Golden League winning streak to 17 races with her 35th sub 50 seconds performance. Having won in Berlin too, Richards left Bislett as one of six athletes still in contention for the $1m jackpot with four meetings to go. Ohuruogu, meanwhile, could manage no better than sixth place.  Richards, beaten by the Briton at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, was understandably cautious about seeing this victory as any kind of dress rehearsal for the World Championships, in Berlin, six weeks later.

The race marked a substantial improvement in the American’s World lead for the season to 49.23 from the 49.57 she had run in Berlin, and the quickest time by anybody since Richards set her American record of 48.70 at the 2006 World Cup in Athens. Furthermore, it came in the first race after a storm disrupted the programme.

The storm was of such ferocity that it caused the collapse of the trackside clock display and a number of the other infield scoreboards.

“I did not expect the world lead after the storm,” Richards said. “We were worried in the warm-up what will happen… when would we be running? I thought the track might have felt wet, that it might have been slower, but it felt fine.” So far, so good, but what would happen when the World Championships come around? Richards would win this time with Ohuruogu outside the medals.

Yelena Isinbayeva secured her place among the six jackpot survivors but only after the storm had interrupted the women’s Pole Vault. It was not a night for dangerous record attempts, even for the prolific Isinbayeva, and a second-time clearance at 4.71 – the Russian is the world’s only five metres women’s jumper – was enough to do the job.

Like Isinbayeva, whose victory over Poland’s Monika Pyrek came on countback, Kenenisa Bekele did just enough. Bekele won the 5000m, kicking to lead at the bell and fending off all challengers to win in 13:04.87. “I’m coming back to my best shape,” Bekele said, still declining to confirm whether he would double at the World Championships. The answer, eventually, would be ‘yes’ and he would win both.

The other three athletes leaving Oslo still in contention for the jackpot were Jamaica’s Kerron Stewart (100m), Damu Cherry, of the United States (100m Hurdles) and  Finland’s Tero Pitkamaki (Javelin). Stewart recorded her fifth sub 11 seconds run of the season (10.99), Cherry ran a season’s best 12.68, and Pitkamaki (84.63) defeated double Olympic champion Andreas Thorkildsen, who was third (83.15), on the Norwegian’s home ground.

The Dream Mile continues to be a vehicle for records. Winner Deresse Meknonnen, the World Indoor champion, improved his Ethiopian national record to 3:48.95 while, in second place, Kenya’s William Biwott set a World Junior record of 3:49.29. The previous World mark had been held by another Kenyan, Alex Kipchirchir (3:50.25) since 2003. The next day Biwott enjoyed his first perk from becoming a World record holder. He was given an upgrade to business class on his flight out of Oslo.

In other events, Ariane Friedrich, women’s High Jump victor over Blanka Vlasic in Berlin, chose not to compete and Asafa Powell scored a narrow 100m victory (10.07) over Antigua and Barbuda’s Daniel Bailey, winner in Berlin.

10 July
Golden Gala
Rome, Italy

It would be another week before Captain Usain Bolt would board Flight 100m for his maiden journey in this season’s Golden League but, in the meantime, Tyson Gay and Kerron Stewart took charge of the controls. With Bolt waiting until the fourth meeting  in Paris to take his first Golden League trip of 2009, Gay and Stewart got on with the job of running fast times.

Gay equalled his own United States record with 9.77 to defeat Jamaica’s Asafa Powell (9.88). Passengers on Flight 100m could hear the announcement loud and clear: “Captain Bolt has a serious challenger for the World title in Berlin next month.”

“I feel I’m improving,” said Gay, who had clocked a wind-assisted 9.75 the previous month in the first round of the US championships. At a Golden Gala preview press conference, Gay had been adamant that the hamstring injury which had ruined his Olympics was behind him and that he was poised for a repeat of his 100/200m golden double at the 2007 World Championships, in Osaka.

“I’m 100 per cent healthy and I give myself a 100 per cent chance to win,” the 26-year-old Gay had said of his Berlin prospects as he prepared to kick-off his European season in Rome. Now, one day later, he rolled out further evidence as to why he felt so confident. He had already recorded 19.58 for 200m in New York on 30 May.

Stewart faced her stiffest challenge of the Golden League season so far and passed her test brilliantly. Running to the inside of her compatriot and Olympic champion, Shelly-Ann Fraser, Stewart blasted away over the final 40 metres to reach the line in 10.75, a World lead and personal best which equalled the meeting record set a decade earlier.

Thus Stewart kept her place among the shrinking group of jackpot contenders, now down to four by the end of this meeting. Kenenisa Bekele, Yelena Isinbayeva and Sanya Richards joined Stewart with a 100 per cent record from the three Golden League meeting so far.

Stewart missed Merlene Ottey’s national record by just one-hundredth and only Florence Griffith-Joyner, Marion Jones, Christine Arron and Ottey have run faster. Some days later, with her performance still resonating, Stewart was asked how much faster she might be able to go.

“If I put a limit or a time on what I can do I will just work towards that and I never want to limit myself,” Stewart said. “You’ll see a faster time as long as I do the right stuff. I don’t think about the World record (Griffith-Joyner’s 10.49).  I watched the race a couple of times and it was amazing. Every time I watch that race I’m lost for words. I don’t know how to go about breaking that record but I don’t think it is impossible.”

More immediately, would Stewart be able to repeat her victory here over the Olympic champion at the World Championships? Answer: No. Fraser would take the gold, Stewart the silver.

Biding his time behind the pacemakers, Bekele was never seriously threatened over the final lap of the 5000m, clocking a World leading 12:56.23. Isinbayeva did not produce a rerun of her World record antics here a year ago but she was still the dominant winner with 4.85. And Richards cruised unchallenged to a 49.46 victory in the 400m.

The lone jackpot contender to fall in Rome was Tero Pitkamaki, thanks to Andreas Thorkildsen’s final round throw of 87.46. For the home crowd, there was nothing sweeter than Antonietta DiMartino’s shock victory over World champion Blanka Vlasic in the High Jump, one the Italian record holder described as a “dream come true.”

“The fact that I beat Vlasic was less important,” said DiMartino, who jumped 2.00. “I have always dreamt of winning in Rome.” The Croatian star was second on 1.97.

17 July
Meeting Areva
Paris, France

You can buy Usain Bolt to race but you can’t buy the weather. Like a rookie football manager signing Ronaldo for a day, Laurent Boquillet marked his first year as director of France’s annual circuit showpiece meeting by spending a large portion of his budget on securing Bolt’s first appearance of the season in the Golden League.

And what happened? For splashing the cash, Boquillet got a dash with a splash. The rain fell on the men’s 100m but you would never have guessed it had you read his time in the papers without knowing the circumstances. Bolt still managed to erase Asafa Powell’s meeting record of 9.85, running 9.79 into a slight headwind.

The triple Olympic champion’s start was poor - he was second slowest away – but he was still a clear winner over Antigua and Barbuda’s Daniel Bailey, who set a national record 9.91.  "In these conditions the time is great but it was hard to put everything in place from start to finish," Bolt said.

Only 30 days to go before the men’s 100m final at the World Championships in Berlin.  And we all know now what happened there. 9.58. 19.19. Enough said.

How had Boquillet captured Bolt’s services while the meet directors of Berlin, Oslo and Rome failed? “I succeeded first because I think I have the budget,” he explained. “Then I decided to spend my budget on him – the others might have it but prefer to break it down and distribute it to some other athletes. I thought it was really important. I have to fill a stadium and right now, unfortunately, only Bolt can do that. So that was a priority.”

Predicting that Kerron Stewart (100m), Sanya Richards (400m) and Yelena Isinbayeva (Pole Vault) would continue on their path towards the jackpot - they did - Boquillet added: “The only one in danger is Bekele”. He wasn’t.

Boquillet’s reservations over Bekele in the 3000m were built on a platform of knowing that Bernard Lagat had been the last man to beat the Ethiopian over 5000m, in 2006, and Hicham El Guerrouj, formerly managed by the Frenchman, had told him what great form the American was in. But Lagat couldn’t get near Bekele.

A  fourth lap of 59.7 seconds did the damage and destroyed Lagat’s hopes, allowing the Ethiopian to gradually widen his advantage. Thus Bekele never allowed the quick finishing Lagat to position himself for an attack. Bekele recorded 7:28.64 while Lagat gave the challenge everything he had, finishing in a personal best 7:33.15.

Isinbayeva’s event was severely hampered by the weather, with her first and only jump of 4.65m securing victory. Svetlana Feofanova, who was Isinbayeva’s only surviving opponent at that point with a first time success at the previous height (4.55), abandoned her competition in second place after one failure at 4.65, having sprained her heel and wrist in an awkward fall. Anna Rogowska the only other athlete to try 4.65, failing three times, ended third on 4.55. 

Who, though, would have predicted what was to happen next? Waiting for the Russian at the World Championships was one of the shock moments as she failed to clear a height. And Rogowska’s stunned reaction after winning the gold? “This, for me, was a huge surprise because Yelena is the best. I would like to reiterate that she is No.1”

As in Oslo, the rain did little to affect Richards, who won in 49.34, more than a second clear. Among the 46,500 spectators in the Stade de France was her fiancé and NFL star Aaron Ross, who watched her compete outside the US for the first time.  Stewart was never challenged in the 100m, winning in 10.99.

For the home fans, two of France’s World Championship medal hopefuls, Renaud Lavillenie and  Mahiedine Mekhissi-Benabbad, recorded victories. Lavillenie coped with the rain the best of the male pole vaulters, winning at 5.70m. Mekhissi-Benabbad took the 3000m Steeplechase in 8:13.23.

28 August
Weltklasse
Zürich, Switzerland

It started with a confession by Yelena Isinbayeva. She had, she admitted in a full and frank press conference disclosure the day before Weltklasse, been too complacent going into the Berlin World Championships. So there would be no more complacency. At least not this season. And certainly not here.

Has there ever been such a literal rise after a fall? Having landed to earth three times in Berlin without clearing the women’s Pole Vault bar once, Isinbayeva now soared to the dizzy heights of her 27th World record.  A mere 11 days after the drama of her early stage exit from the World Championships, the Russian was not only back performing but commanding the spotlight.

Isinbayeva scaled 5.06 on her first try to eclipse the 5.05 she had recorded in winning the Olympic title in Beijing last year. It kept her in contention for the Golden League jackpot and, with Kerron Stewart suffering defeat in the women’s 100m, her potential share was upgraded from a minimum $250,000 to $333,333.

“It’s really unbelievable to set a World record after such a big defeat in Berlin,” Isinbayeva said. “But I’m happy with that defeat now. It made me more hungry. And maybe I wouldn’t have beaten the World record.

“After that defeat I recognised that it’s really important to concentrate on the win and then to set World records. Before, I maybe felt that victories weren’t that important for me but today I changed my mind.”

What had Isinbayeva told journalists the day before about her demise in Berlin? “When I went to the track, I didn’t feel like I was at a competition,” she said. “My body was there but my mind was absent. I was thinking about other things. I thought that the competition was going to be so easy for me. And, of course, I would then try another World record. I was so confident that I lost a little of my concentration.”

Although they didn’t enter the record books, Kenenisa Bekele and Sanya Richards produced 2009 World leads. Richards dipped under 49-seconds for 400m for the third time in her career, clocking 48.94. Bekele ran a dominant 5000m in 12:52.32.  Richards won by nearly a second and Bekele by almost three. While Kenya’s Edwin Soi finished runner-up (12:55.03), the USA’s Dathan Ritzenhein recorded 12:56.27 to remove the Area record of compatriot Bob Kennedy (12:58.21) set here in 1996.

Usain Bolt. Remember him? By the standards he had set at the World Championships, a 100m victory in 9.81 was bound to be left until lower in the story. It might have moved higher up had Asafa Powell managed to sustain to the finish the lead he held at 70 metres. But Powell lost ground in the closing stages, recording 9.88.

Bolt, upstaged by Isinbayeva for performer of the night, even played second fiddle in the 4x100m, despite anchoring the Jamaican squad to victory in 37.70. The Letzigrund Stadium crowd roared loud when it was declared that the Swiss quartet had set a national record 38.78.

Back at the jackpot table Stewart fell off her stool. However, the World silver medallist’s conqueror was not Shelly Ann Fraser, the World and Olympic champion, but Carmelita Jeter, of the US, who had finished third behind the two Jamaicans at the World Championships. Jeter clocked 10.86 with Stewart a distant second in 11.04.

In other highlights, double Olympic champion Andreas Thorkildsen set a World leading 91.28 in the men’s Javelin, dropping only 31cm short of his personal best. Brigitte Foster-Hylton, the surprise 34-year-old winner of the World 100m Hurdles title, followed up her Berlin triumph with a World leading 12.46, just 0.01 outside her Jamaican record.

4 September
Belgacom Memorial Van Damme
Brussels, Belgium

How fitting the Golden League should end like this.

Three of the sport’s biggest stars stood firm through the finale to share in the $1m jackpot payout. The oldest official IAAF World record fell. Usain Bolt sprinted like only Usain Bolt can. And there were several other top-class performances.  The sell-out crowd of 47,000 roared their approval. Nights like this are worth suffering for.

Not that the suffering amounted to much. It was a damp evening but not a stinker.  Even on the worst nights the atmospheric King Baudouin Stadium always feels homely and Sanya Richards, Yelena Isinbayeva, Kenenisa Bekele – and Bolt of course - were the treasures within.  Each won in style.

Typically, Isinbayeva started in the Pole Vault just where her competitors had ended, Richards ran the second fastest 400m of her life and won by more than a second-and-a-half, and Bekele toyed with the field in the 5000m only to outkick them again.

But it was Richards, of the three, who finished the strongest. A jackpot winner in 2006 and 2007, she has been in equally invincible form this season. Unbeaten on the Golden League circuit for five years, she clocked 48.83 to supplant the 27-year-old meeting record held by East Germany’s Marita Koch. Christine Ohuruogu was second in 50.43.

In less than optimum conditions for the Pole Vault, Isinbayeva needed only one jump, at 4.70, to defeat Monika Pyrek, Silke Spiegelburg and Fabiana Murer on countback. Bekele had a gathering on his shoulder going into the final lap of the 5000m but used his trademark sprint finish to win in 12:55.31. 

What would each do with his or her $333,333 share? Isinbayeva said she would provide gifts for an orphanage in her native Vologograd. Bekele would give some to a development fund in Addis Ababa. Richards, due to be married in the winter, said she would “use some to make my wedding even more grandiose.”

Bolt clocked 19.57 for 200m, a time which only he and Michael Johnson had beaten, to erase Tyson Gay’s meeting record of 19.79 from 2006. Gay (10.00) was beaten by Asafa Powell (9.90) in the 100m and Carmelita Jeter continued her post Berlin surge, winning the women’s 100m (10.88).

Brigitte Foster-Hylton, revelling in her new role as the World 100m Hurdles champion, ran another fast time, 12.48, for her third successive victory since her Berlin triumph and Ethiopia’s Gelete Burka made a decent attack on Sonia O’Sullivan’s 15-year-old 2000m World record of 5:25.36 before losing it on the last lap and having to settle for an African record 5:30.19.

One World record did fall, though. It came in the rarely run men’s 4x1500m as Kenyan quartet William Biwott Tanui, Gideon Gathimba, Geoffrey Kipkoech Rono and Augustine Choge clocked 14:36.23 to beat the mark of 14:38.8 held by the Federal Republic of Germany since 1977.

Remarkably, perhaps, although the country’s strength in depth is well-known, this wasn’t even Kenya’s strongest squad. Not even close. In the 2009 IAAF Top Lists on the day of the race, Choge was the Kenyan No.1 but Tanui was No.4 among his countrymen, Gathimba No.6 and Rono No.14.

As context for how long ago 1977 is, it was the year that the Van Damme Memorial meeting was held for the first time. It was the year that Elvis Presley died. All good things must come to an end and tonight it was the turn of the Golden League. But it went out in style.

David Powell for the IAAF

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