It takes two to tango

2 Wilson kipketer vs Djabir Said Guerni
Hard to imagine but Wilson Kipketer’s hopes of claiming the Olympic 800m title that evaded him four years ago after his former national federation, the Kenyans, barred him from running for Denmark do not look as cast iron as when the season started. The mercurial naturalised Dane is both the indoor and outdoor world record holder. However, Kipketer’s recent form has given his main rival Algeria’s Djabir Said Guerni plenty of reasons to be cheerful. A sergeant in the Algerian Army, made good on the promise he showed when taking the bronze in Seville last year with a huge win over Kipketer in the Brussels Golden League meeting last month. But Kipketer losing two on the trot is questionable,

2 Hicham el Guerrouj vs Noah Ngeny
This duo’s one-two in the world championships final in Seville last year produced `The race of the century’ according to former 1500m world record holder Sebastian Coe – and he wasn’t far wrong. However, Ngeny, who only a year before had acted as a pacemaker for El Guerrouj’s 1500m world record in Rome, did get it wrong when he boldly stated afterwards that the Moroccan master would not beat him this year. Sadly for the 21-year-old Kenyan, who robbed Coe’s lastworld record, the 1000 metres, to round off his 1999 season, he has lost every time he has come up against El Guerrouj this season and could not even break him when he ran a national record in Zurich.

2 Allen Johnson vs Colin Jackson
This duo are probably two of the all time great athletes and have delivered some memorable battles in the 110m hurdles over the past six years – the trouble is one would be hard pressed to have read much about it as neither have gone out of their way to court the press. For Jackson victory would complete a clean sweep of titles and records spread over a 12 year career and for Johnson it might just mean he could win himself a few extra column inches – for a day!

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2 Ato Boldon vs Floyd Heard
A fascinating battle between the relative youth of 26-year-old Boldon and 34-year-old veteran Heard which on Grand Prix form should go to the younger man but the weakness for Ato is he has never been very good at sealing the title. It is certainly not the stringest duo to appear as favourites in an Olympic sprint.

2 Marion Jones vs Heike Drechsler
While Italy’s English-born Fiona may could well take the long jump title it is the meeting of Drechsler and Jones which will make for interesting combat after spikey comments the German legend made about Jones’ chances of winning the gold medal. The 35-year-old German, who won her first world crown aged 19 in 1983, said it was hard for an amateur to come along and win the title which wasn’t bad for the prelude to a potential cat fight in the sand come Sydney.