byLarry Eder
Hampden Park, Commonwealth Games 2014, July 27-August 3, 2014,
photo by Claus Andersen
The Commonwealth Games has been a wonderful championship. The highlight so far, on Thursday night, was the battle between David Rudisha, returning to fitness and Nijel Amos, in the shape of his life.
For a moment, I thought that David Rudisha might have held off Nijel Amos, but, it was not to be!
Here is the column that Justin Lagat wrote about the 800 meters!
David Rudisha is the only athlete who was not splashed with water during the Glasgow’s 800m finals. With his trademark front running tactic, he had immediately hit the front after the lane barriers and remained ahead of the field on the wet Hampden Park stadium splashing water on Nijel Amos of Botswana who was running just behind him for the better part of the race. When Amos finally got to overtake him with less than forty meters to go, he did not get a chance to splash the water back at the world record holder as he could only finished the race on lane two while Rudisha was on lane one.
Even as David Rudisha had eased effortlessly to win in the first rounds and in the semi-finals of the 800m race in the past days, everyone who had closely followed the happenings on the Diamond League series knew that there was going to be one real challenger for him at the finals. Amos Nijel of Botswana had defeated Rudisha two times this year; at the Prefontaine Classic and at the Monaco IAAF Diamond League races. But Kenyans were hoping that Rudisha’s 2012 shape would have eventually returned to him before the finals of the event in Glasgow, or at least a shape enough to enable him beat the Botswanan athlete.
The only athlete to have beaten Nijel Amos at the 800m event this year is Kenya’s 1500m specialist, Asbel Kiprop, during the Paris Diamond league last month. But Kiprop was not selected into the Kenyan team to the Glasgow Games, nor was his main rival in the 1500m distance, Silas Kiplagat. Amos knew that all he had to focus on, in order to get the title, was on how to beat Rudisha. He knew well how Rudisha run his races as he had studied that from the time the two ran together at the London Olympics and also at the recent couple of Diamond League races earlier this year.
The 400m mark was crossed in 52 seconds. It was relatively slow and almost all the athletes were still there in one pack. Not sure whether it was a plan, Ferguson Rotich moved up to the front and ran beside Rudisha on the outside lane, which appeared to have been a way to make it a little harder for other athletes to try and overtake them and coming to the last bend, Nijel Amos looked like he had already fallen into the trap and was boxed in lane one, but Andre Olivier who was running a little behind him on the outside acted in a real spirit of sportsmanship and provided room for him to come out. Amos Nijel seized the opportunity and produced a great finishing kick that no other athlete there could match. David Rudisha could only watch him run past to snatch the Commonwealth title from him, which he had seen about an arm’s length ahead of him.
Amos was clearly very elated by his triumphant victory as he ran around displaying his country’s national flag. He, at some point, jumped at the South African athlete, Andre Olivier, and hugged him, probably to thank him for letting him come out of the box at the home stretch. Andre had tried to follow him after he came out and had, in the process, also landed himself on the bronze medal position.
This is the only medal that has, so far, gone to Botswana at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games (editor’s note-Amos medal was only second EVER for Botswana in athletics at CG); the only medal, by one athlete, that has put the country on the limelight. I don’t know who the president of Botswana is, but Nijel Amos has just prompted me to look up a few facts about his land-locked country, which has a population of about 1.8 million people and is the world’s largest supplier of high quality diamonds.
Now, I know where to find quality diamonds!
