Bungei - what might have been in Paris?

MonteCarloWhen world leader Wilfred Bungei powered past compatriot Joseph Mutua to win the 800 metres at the World Athletics Final yesterday, it was a vindication of sorts for the 23 year-old Kenyan after missing last month's World Championships in Paris.

"I am very happy because I did not expect to win against everyone who competed in the World Championships," Bungei said after his 1:45.97 win against one of the strongest fields assembled in 2003. "Only the World champion was not here."

Following Mutua throughout, the pair reached the bell in 53.03, a slow split that in hindsight, did not bode particularly well for Bungei. Fortunately for him, he said, he didn't know at the time that the race was developing so slowly.

"One good thing for me is that I was not able to see the first 400, because if I would have seen the first 400, I would have really lost focus. Because usually for me, I need a 51 or under, so it was good that I didn't see the clock."

Reflecting back to his hospital bed in Nairobi, and the decision by the Kenyan federation to keep him off the Paris squad, the 2001 World Championships silver medallist has taken it all in stride, but still wonders what could have been.

"It was really hectic for me," he said.  "Trying to prepare for a race since January, then just two days before the trials to get sick and not be on the team."

While the pros and cons of various nation's qualification procedures can be debated for days, it was clear that the 1998 World Junior Championships silver medallist was missed in Paris.

After his bronze medal effort at the World Indoor Championships, Bungei was undeniably the strongest two-lap runner in the first half of the summer.  He followed up three sub-1:44 wins in the first twelve days of June with three sub-1:45 efforts, winning five of his first seven races before he came down with pneumonia just two days prior to the Kenyan trials and couldn't compete.  It took seven days in the hospital to recover, he said, then another week before he was able to race again.  "The federation," he said, "they didn't even consider the fact that I was running so good here [in Europe]."

He came back with a runner-up finish in Berlin in early August and another sub 1:45 in Zurich, before leaving for his training base in Davos, Switzerland, where he watched the Paris competition on television. Underscoring his fitness, he ran a near PB 1:42.52 to win in Brussels eight days ago.  Only five others have ever run faster.

"My performance showed that I should have been in Paris," he said after the Van Damme Memorial.

Did he miss World champion Djabir Said Guerni who was not in Monaco?

"I would have loved to see him here because I know where he would have been," Bungei said.  "However, because this is more of a tactical race, as it was in the World Championships, without a pace maker, this is where at least I could have proved what I could have done in the Worlds."

Bungei will conclude his season at next weekend's Moscow Challenge.