Radcliffe lends support to Szabo's cause

So the stage is set for the most controversial showdown in the history of women's distance running. Edmonton should count itself lucky, because whatever happens in the final of the 5,000 metres later today will be recalled for a long time to come.

Most of the talk concerns a Romanian and a Russian - Gabriela Szabo and Olga Yegorova - but already there's been a lot of whispers of blood and urine, some threats of boycotts, and a lot of shouting from the stands.

The quality of the two heats on Thursday night hints towards the toughest race of these championships, but so far it's been hard to see beyond this duel.

As winner of the 1,500 metres earlier in the week and gunning for the first golden double in Edmonton, Szabo has found the good press landing on her side. So often the feared rival of Sonia O'Sullivan, she has not put a foot wrong on or off the track in the last nine days.

As the first athlete to be found with the blood-boosting drug EPO in her system and yet cleared to compete due to a technical fault in the testing, Yegorova has landed all the bad press. She beat Szabo for the World Indoor title back in March and beat her twice since but it's hard to imagine how the crowd will react should she win gold here.

Britain's Paula Radcliffe has already made her reaction quite clear. As the athletes assembled on the start line for the heat, she raised a home-made sign calling on officials to stop athletes in drugs, which read: "EPO cheats out."

"We do feel something should be done so this doesn't happen again," said Radcliffe, who earlier in the week finished fourth (again) in the 10,000 metres. "A lot of athletes have strong feelings that she (Yegorova) shouldn't be able to run."

Canadian officials soon approached Radcliffe and threatened to escort her from the stadium if she didn't remove the sign. According to reports, some of the Russian athletes in the area were calling Radcliffe crazy, while others, including some Algerians, started approaching to shake her hand. More than half the athletes in the race wore red ribbons as a similar form of protest.

Radcliffe admitted: "There are people out there in the sport who will not like what I am doing or saying and would perhaps like to discredit me. I just have to make sure everything I do is right and make sure I protect myself, not just with what I eat or drink, but everything else. I will have to watch my back."

A sneak preview to possible events in the final came in the heats. Both athletes, rather surprisingly, were drawn together and spent all 12 and half laps sharing shoulders.

Yegorova pressed a little harder on the last lap to take second, but Szabo was never less than a stride back and took fourth. It was a mere warm-up. "I have nothing to say to you," Yegorova told the media as she swept through the mixed zone afterwards. "I will talk to you after Saturday."

Szabo played her cards equally close, but when told about the protest, she touched her chest: "It's good, thank you Paula. For my heart, it is the best."

Unfortunately, the strong hope of having some Irish interest in the final quickly evaporated over the course of the two heats, with only Breda Dennehy-Willis giving herself a real chance of seeing another day, despite running in the same heat as Szabo and Yegorova.

The Cork athlete didn't depart without giving her honest views on certain athletes that finished ahead of her. "We all know that if EPO shows up in your urine then you're riddled with the stuff. Even if it shows up in the blood after that, it's gone out of the urine in a couple of days. So that test was completely and utterly positive.

"But they didn't follow the procedure and what can you do. I think it has scared everybody and you've seen a lot of weird things in these championships, like people not finishing heats when they should have been in the medals. Or people staying in the blocks when the gun goes off."