Duo chasing a defining double

Athletics/5,000 metres final: It's already destined for the history books, a battle for the ages and a race certain to provide a defining moment in distance running. Hicham El Guerrouj against Kenenisa Bekele - live at the Olympic Stadium, for one night only. Never has an Olympic 5,000 metres final been so hotly anticipated.

Win this and El Guerrouj can stake his claim as the greatest of all time. With his 1,500-metre title brilliantly secured last Tuesday night, he sets out to become the first man since Paavo Nurmi in 1924 to achieve this Olympic double.

Win this and Bekele, at just 22, can stake his claim as the greatest Ethiopian of all time. And that's what matters most of all to him. With his 10,000-metre title just as brilliantly won last Friday he now chases the other great distance double last achieved by his fellow Ethiopian Miruts Yifter back in 1980. Even Haile Gebrselassie wasn't up for that challenge.

That Alistair Cragg is also in there running in the green vest of Ireland adds to the moment. The 24-year-old has achieved what he wanted to do and made the final - in this his first major championships. He's the only European representation and ran a superb semi-final just to get there.

But Cragg is also determined to make his mark on this race, and not just be a passenger. His best of 13:12.74 is the second slowest of the 15 starters. There are 10 men with sub-13-minute times to their name. None of that will faze him. Cragg will get the most out of himself no matter how the race is run, and that could leave him anywhere among the leading finishers. For now though a medal is out of his reach.

"No one remembers you if you come here and get kicked out in the preliminaries," he says. "The final is the stage you want to be on. So whatever I run now will stick with me for the rest of my life. Hopefully, people will remember a good thing.

"And I see the Olympics as a one-off chance. It's a tremendous opportunity, and I'm very proud to be there. I'm there now, but the job is not done yet. I want to go out there and do something special. I know I'm not quite in their class yet but it's the final, and anything can happen."

One need only revisit the world championships in Paris a year ago to support the notion that anything can happen in the final. That too was a race billed as the battle for the distance double between El Guerrouj and Bekele.

Upsetting them both was the then 18-year-old world junior cross-country champion, Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya, who out-leaned El Guerrouj by .04 of a second and won in 12:52.79. Bekele was third.

Now a year older and wiser, Kipchoge improved his best to 12:46.53 when winning in Rome last month. He too looked easy when qualifying on Wednesday, and of course will have fresher legs than both the Moroccan and the Ethiopian.

Others, like the Australian Craig Mottram and the other Kenyan, Abraham Chebii, will be hunting for the bronze medal. Yet the gold still seems destined to come down to the chase for the double.

Bekele has won 11 of his 11 races this year, setting three world records in the process and collecting four world cross-country titles (two team and two individual) and of course the 10,000-metre title. He ran his 5,000-metre world record of 12:37.35 just a week after lowering the 10,000-metre world record.

El Guerrouj has promised to employ different tactics from last year, when he took up the running three laps from home. That almost certainly means waiting until the final lap, which he proved last Tuesday he can run in the low 51 seconds. Bekele closed his 10,000 final in 53 seconds. And if it does come down to the last lap then it seems El Guerrouj is the only one that can win.

Two more of this evening's finals are set to produce fitting climaxes on the last day in the Olympic Stadium. Britain's Kelly Holmes goes into the women's 1,500 metres as the second fastest qualifier but the clear favourite to add a second gold to that won over 800 metres.

The men's 800 metres has already been the most competitive event at these Games, and the eight that contest this evening's final are all capable of striking gold. Denmark's Wilson Kipketer appears the man in marginally the best form.