Village celebrates Jelimo's success

By Jack Oyoo

KAPSABET, Kenya (Reuters) - Before her Olympic 800 metres title in August and $1 million (553,000 pounds) Golden League jackpot in September, few people were interested in the family of Kenya's Pamela Jelimo.

Now suitors are trooping to her village in Kenya's Rift Valley to offer marriage and seven men have claimed to be her father, locals say.

Potential husbands have been told to ease off, though one -- an athlete named Percy Murei -- was in the background as the village of Koyo held celebrations recently to mark the 18-year-old Jelimo's success as Kenya's first female Olympic champion and first Golden League winner.

There have also been rival claims about who first noticed that Jelimo, the third of nine children of single mother Esther Cheptoo Keter, could run.

A local coach, Zaid Kipkemboi Aziz, is widely credited with discovering her talent but a retired, 57-year-old teacher, Elijah Kipsang Langat, says he helped her three years ago, before Aziz knew her.

"Jelimo was brought to me by her mother Esther in 2005. Her request was that I get her girl a pair of spikes and track suits," Langat told Reuters in Kipletito Primary School, some 45 km south of Eldoret, Kenya's centre of excellence for distance running, where he was coaching a group of barefoot runners.

"Jelimo was among my first athletes here. Some of them have been employed by institutions like the police and armed forces.

TRACK SUITS