PARIS, July 17, 2008 (AFP) - The Olympics may be the prime target for most athletes this season but for two women both that and the lure of the million dollar Golden League bonus remain viable targets.

Kenyan teenage phenomenon Pamela Jelimo and Croatian high jumper Blanka Vlasic are the only two athletes still in with a chance of securing the bonus for going through the six Golden League meetings unbeaten and here in the fourth leg in Paris on Friday they will endeavour to go one step nearer to a lucrative payday.

Jelimo has been simply unbeatable this season, the 18-year-old having bested her compatriot and reigning world champion Janeth Jepkosgei thoughout the campaign - hardly the most charitable thing to do when her elder rival was the one who persuaded her to switch from 400m to the longer distance.

However, Jelimo perhaps displaying some youthful naivete, believes that whoever wins between them it doesn't matter.

'Janeth and I are good friends. We have been training together and it does not matter who wins or loses,' she said after she had trounced Jepkosgei by over three seconds at the Olympic trials earlier this month.

Jepkosgei, though, hasn't given up hope of finally beating her upstart of a rival, whilst admitting it is 'disturbing' the manner in which she is being beaten, with Jelimo beating her rivals by over three seconds which is an enormous difference in any event but in the 800m is almost unheard of.

'I don't feel it (that it is embarrassing to lose to her) because I am still young,' said the 25-year-old, who will bid to become Kenya's first Olympic women's athletics champion in Beijing.

'I have to maintain my running. As for winning and losing, that is sport. Look at Jeremy Wariner and Asafa Powell,' she told the IAAF website.

Whilst Jepkosgei has seen her top of the world status called into question that has not been the case of 24-year-old Vlasic, who has won 32 successive high jump competitions.

For many there is not so much the debate over whether she will be beaten but when she finally breaks Bulgarian Stefa Kostadinova's longstanding world record of 2.09 metres.

While the fairer sex may dominate the money stakes this time round and none of the super three from the men's 100m is present, there is still a mouthwatering duel in prospect in the men's 400m between American duo Jeremy Wariner and the pretender to his throne LaShawn Merritt.

Wariner, the Olympic and world champion, put an end to Merritt's run of two successive defeats of him with a thrilling seat of the pants duel in the Golden League meeting last Friday.

Wariner may have won that one but he is well aware that he has not struck a fatal blow to his rival's confidence.

'It was not a relief. LaShawn's going to be there for the rest of the season. So I just have to work harder,' said Wariner.

Merritt believed that he could correct the mistake he made against Wariner.

'I started to lean a little too early. That?s OK. You live, you run, you learn.'

He will hope he has learnt the full lesson by the time it comes to the Olympics, and the final leg of the learning curve before then comes on Friday.