Kansas comet out to discover winning path

However, having decided to opt out of the prestigious meet in Lausanne yesterday because he felt tired he returns with the added bonus that his nemesis Chambers is not running.

In a rare example of sportsmen these days Chambers has opted to rest up a bit before the Commonwealth Games and the European Championships rather than keep his hopes alive of sharing in the 50kg gold bar should he have won all seven Golden League meets.

Greene, though, will still face stiff opposition from his main rival from last year Tim Montgomery and Portugal’s ‘new find’ Nigerian-born Francis Obikwelu.

Obikwelu, who won world outdoor 200m silver in 1999 for Nigeria but has since gained Portuguese citizenship after living there for eight years, served notice on the others with a stunning double success in Lausanne yesterday.

The ageless Gail Devers will seek to keep her dreams of a share in the gold bar and judging by her world best time for the year in the 100m hurdles in Lausanne the 35-year-old should prevail.

Whether Devers can keep going till the 2004 Olympics and try one last time to add a hurdles title to her two 100m crowns is open to question but she says she has never felt in better shape.

“The day that I don’t feel right will be the day I call it quits,” she said.

“However, at the moment there is no question of that happening.

“I am much more relaxed now and some days I don’t even train if I don’t feel like it,” she added.

Marion Jones too will be looking to take another bite into winning her third share of the Golden League bonus and while her times have not been that impressive she has still been winning.

“I think the cold weather in Oslo and Lausanne had some thing to do with my below-par times,” she said.

The most mouthwatering battle of the night should be the men’s 400m hurdles with the Dominican Republic’s world champion Felix Sanchez back in the fray after missing yesterday’s meet.

However, he will have to cope with the ever improving 30-year-old Briton Chris Rawlinson, who put Olympic champion Angelo Taylor and two previous world champions to the sword in Lausanne.

Sanchez, though, was highly impressive in Oslo and the man who sports a superman tattoo on his arm should still be in with the gold bar hopefuls come Saturday.