He’s only 22 years-old, but to Ethiopia’s Ibrahim Jeilan his gold medal in last night’s 10,000m was a long time coming.

Back in 2008, Jeilan began to demonstrate his true class.  He won the junior title at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Edinburgh, Scotland, and clocked 27:13.85 in a special 10,000m race at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon, beaten only by Kenenisa Bekele.  Jeilan thought that performance was good enough to put him on Ethiopia’s team for the Beijing Olympic Games.  Instead, he was selected for the IAAF World Junior Championships team in Bydgoszcz, Poland. He would win the bronze medal there, but that wasn’t the same as running in the Olympics.

For the last two years I was in the national team, but they didn’t let me go to Olympic Games,” Jeilan explained last night.  ”I felt very angry at the time.”

Jeilan also thought he should have been selected for the 2009 IAAF World Championships the following year, but was again passed over.  He ended up running road races in America that summer, instead.”So, I was very angry I couldn’t (run in Berlin),” Jeilan said.  ”So, I go to Japan to prepare well there.