Pamela Jelimo

Pamela Jelimo stormed into athletics history when she won a gold medal at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing at the age of 18 years, making her the youngest Kenyan woman and one of the youngest Kenyans to win an Olympic gold medal.

In a blaze of success after the Olympic victory, Jelimo soon after also became the first woman to receive the Golden League Jackpot worth millions of dollars.

Before going to the Olympics, she had run in various races, achieving the 800m World Junior Record and the Senior African Record. She had  also won the 400m African Junior Championships, 800m African Championships, 800m World Athletics Final and 800m World Indoor Championships among other races.

Born on 5 December 1989 in Rift Valley’s Nandi County, Jelimo was a gifted runner from an early age, drawing inspiration from her mother who was also a runner.

Although she experienced a decline in performance between 2009 and 2011 due to injuries, she made a comeback in 2012, finishing second in an indoor meet in Lievin, France. And she made away with gold at the 2012 World Indoor Championships in Istanbul, Turkey.

In 2017, Jelimo was awarded bronze for the 2012 London Olympics race in which she had emerged fourth. This was after Russian Mariya Savinova-Farnosova’s win was invalidated following a failed doping test.

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