Track queen Jepkosgei eyes unfinished business in Beijing

Nairobi, March 12 : Since bagging silver at the 2001 Africa Junior Championships Kenyan track queen Janeth Jepkosgei has risen to be the most decorated female track athlete of her nation with 14 medals and the 2015 season represents another chance to add to her collection.

The 31-year-old 800-metre medal machine has a firm eye on this summer's IAAF World Championships in Beijing. She is driven by the unfinished business of seeing her thunder stolen by compatriot Pamela Jelimo when the Chinese capital hosted the 2008 Olympics, reports Xinhua.

"My first aim is to get to the final and if I get a medal, it will be historic for me. It will be challenging in Beijing since Eunice Sum, the defending champion will be there. We train together so she knows where I'm weak and I know where she is weak, " she said on Wednesday.

"If we get to the final together, doing the 1-2 is something big. I never managed to defend my title and I would like Eunice to defend her title. 

"In Beijing, I also want to do something I never did and win since the last time I was there, there was Pamela but any medal will be so welcome," Jepkosgei, the 2007 world champion in Osaka, Japan said at her training base in Eldoret.

Having been an ever present in Kenya's World Championships line-up since, winning silver at 2009 Berlin and bronze at 2011 Daegu, Jepkosgei was forced to sit out the 2013 Moscow edition with an Achilles tendon injury.

She is confident her injury woes are over allowing her to mount another podium run at the biennial IAAF flagship global track and field event. 

Her confidence further stems from her silver medal finish at the 2014 Africa Athletics championships after her comeback at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games ended in the semi-finals with a seventh finish.

"Going to Beijing has given me different morale, it was somewhere I competed in a tough race with Pamela but I'm in a different age. It's not when I was still young and do everything, " the two-lap track star explained.