Szekely and Bucher clinch 2001 Overall Grand Prix
Sean Wallace-Jones for the IAAF
9 September 2001  - Melbourne, Australia  - Romania’s Violeta Szekely became the first athlete to clinch Overall victory in the Grand Prix Final this afternoon in Melbourne’s Olympic Park in a classic demonstration of the talent and determination that has seen her win every race this season on the Grand Prix circuit.

The men’s Overall leader coming to Melbourne, Allen Johnson had been beaten earlier in the day by Cuba’s Anier Garcia, leaving the men’s Overall open with a victory by either Andre Bucher in the 800 metres or Kevin Dilworth in the long jump sufficient to give either of them victory in the overall competition.

In the end Bucher was the man to do it with a superb win ahead of Russia’s Yuriy Borzakovskiy.

Both of the winners will take home a cool $150,000 on top of their season’s winnings and share of the IAAF Golden League Jackpot as both have achieved the minimum 5 wins required in the Golden League for a share of the 50kg of gold that make up the jackpot this year. In all six athletes shared in the Jackpot this year.

Today’s Grand Prix Final in Melbourne was a fittingly exciting climax to the 2001 Grand Prix circuit as the outdoor track season had started here in March with the Melbourne Track Classic Grand Prix II.

Violeta Szekely came to the Final virtually assured of victory in the Overall competition with a significant ten point lead over her nearest competitors, whereas success for Allen Johnson had been less sure from the outset with just two points separating him in the Standings from Andre Bucher and Kevin Dilworth.

Bucher certainly earned his money this season, with a string of consistent performances marred only by the young Russian athlete Yuriy Borzakovskiy, who ran a world leading time to beat Bucher in the Brussels leg of the Golden League.

This afternoon Bucher changed his usual frontrunning tactics and held back to take the risk of challenging Borzakovskiy in the final sprint for the line. That tactic paid off as the Russian, who had only arrived the day before in Australia, was unable to resist Bucher’s powerful drive for the line.

Bucher’s race had gone entirely according to his plans, as he explained after the race: “I decided a few days ago that I would run a tactical race, mainly because we had no pacemaker. It was risky, I know, because Yuriy has a good kick, but I had no other alternative”. Well the gamble was successful and Bucher now heads for home in Switzerland with another $150,000 dollars to invest.

Szekely’s race was almost straightforward in comparison as the Romanian took total control as she rounded into the home straight to overtake Carla Sacramento (POR) and Russian stalwart Natalya Gorelova as she has done so often this season.

As reported in our interview with Szekely yesterday, she now heads off to Atlanta for a well earned vacation.

Reports of each of the individual events in Melbourne can be found under event reports in the Reports section of this web site.

One sad event marred the day's proceedings with the sad news of the death of Papus Diack, the 32 year old son of the IAAF President Lamine Diack, who passed away in hospital in the Senegalese capital Dakar where he had been hospitalised a few days earlier. President Diack had cancelled his trip to Melbourne for the Grand Prix Final to be beside his son in his final hours. The flag of the International Association of Athletics Federations was flown at half mast during the competition.