Olympic champion Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia yesterday smashed the course record when he cruised to victory in the SPAR Great Ireland Run in Dublin’s Phoenix Park yesterday.

The tenth SPAR Great Ireland Run and SPAR Mini and Junior Great Ireland Runs should create a special atmosphere in the Phoenix Park in Dublin tomorrow as over 11,000 adults and children enjoy a family day out.

One of the greatest athletes of all time is to race in Dublin later this year as part of his preparations for London 2012.

Recently-crowned European Cross County champion Fionnuala Britton took the women's title at today's Antrim International IAAF Cross County Permit meeting.

Double Olympic champion Kenenisa Bekele has been suspended indefinitely by the Ethiopian Athletics Federation following a row over training camps.

European Athletics has announce that Ireland's Fionnualla Britton has been voted as the female European Athlete of the Month for December.

FIONNUALA BRITTON produced the performance of her life to win the BUPA Great Edinburgh cross-country race on Saturday, leaving the best runners from Europe and the US gasping behind her over the hilly and muddy Holyrood Park course.

IRELAND has a rich tradition in cross-country running stretching back to the 1930s and Tim Smyth’s world dominance, through John Treacy’s back-to-back world titles in 1978 an 1979, Catherina McKiernan’s European title in 1994 and then Sonia O’Sullivan’s two world titles on successive days in Marrakech in 1998.

ALISTAIR CRAGG has been something of an enigma since first donning the Irish singlet.

ALISTAIR CRAGG last night delivered a lacklustre performance when finishing last in the 3,000 metres at the IAA Golden League Track and Field Meeting in Paris.

Mary Cullen won has a bronze medal in the final of the 3000m at the European Indoor Championships in Turin today.

ALISTAIR CRAGG will have some exalted athletics company around him when he contests today’s Olympic 5000m final at the Bird’s Nest Stadium (1.10pm, Irish).

JAMAICA’S Melaine Walker continued her nation’s stunning Olympics, winning gold in the 400m hurdles in a new Olympic record of 52.64s.

THE African dominance of global running was reinforced to stranglehold proportions at the world cross-country championships in Edinburgh yesterday where Ethiopians raced to all four individual gold medals and were deprived of gold in just two of the team races by their Kenyan neighbours who won both the senior and junior men’s contests.

LAST year even Zersenay Tadesse himself appeared shocked when he stood on the podium to accept the gold medal at the world cross-country championships in Mombasa.

Ethiopia’s Kenenisa Bekele will bid to land a record sixth IAAF World Cross Country Championship title in Edinburgh on March 30.

Alistair Cragg got over the disappointment of missing last weekend's National Championships by running the fastest 3,000 metres of his career tonight at the IAAF Super Grand Prix meeting in Monaco.

ALISTAIR CRAGG insisted that a sub-13 minute 5,000m is a definite target for him as he put the finishing touches to his preparations for tomorrow night’s Gaz de France Golden League meeting in Paris.

Alistair Cragg finished just outside the medals in the final of the 3,000 metres at the World Indoor Championships in Moscow today.

Alistair Cragg qualified for Sunday’s World Championships indoor final in Moscow but looked a shadow of the runner who won last year’s European indoor 3000 metres title.

ALISTAIR CRAGG is relishing a testing return to the international track scene this month as he bids to put a bittersweet 2005 firmly behind him.

Simon Lewis’s selection: Ethiopian runner Kenenisa Bekele.

Brendan Mooney, Helsinki

LASSE VIREN’S long-striding style was a familiar feature of seventies distance running. Brendan Mooney met the flying Finn in Helsinki as the city prepares to host the World Athletics Championships.

Ethiopian track star Kenenisa Bekele is almost certain to make an attempt on his 5,000 metres world record at the IAAF Golden League meeting in Paris.

EUROPEAN gold medallist Alistair Cragg is considering an audacious attempt at the 4km and 12km titles on successive days at the World Cross-Country Championships in Saint-Etienne/Saint-Galmier next weekend.

ALISTAIR CRAGG has conquered Europe and is ready to take on the world. The new European indoor 3,000m champion plans that assault in two weeks time when he renews rivalry with the double champion, Kenenisa Bekele, at the World cross-country championships in Saint-Etienne/Saint-Galmier.

FIVE athletes have been added to the Irish team for the European Indoor Championships in Madrid next month.

Ireland's Alistair Cragg continued his recent excellent indoor form with another 3,000 metres victory, at the Tyson Invitational meeting in Arkansas.

Kenenisa Bekele's record hopes were dashed when he miscounted his laps in the men's 3,000m and staged his sprint finish a lap too soon at the Boston Indoor Games.

Olympic 10,000m champion Kenenisa Bekele was today mourning the death of his fiancée who collapsed during a training run.

Hicham El Guerrouj completed a second golden double of the night as victory in the men’s 5,000metres final created his own piece of history.

ALISTAIR CRAGG ends a 16-year barren spell in Irish men's athletics when he lines up for the 5,000m final in the Olympic Stadium tonight.

Twenty-four-year-old Alistair Cragg ran one of the races of his life as he came through his 5000m heat as a fastest loser, qualifying him for Saturday's 5000m final in just his first major track championship.

SPRINTING the final lap of the 10,000m, Kenenisa Bekele ended the reign of fellow Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie last night with an Olympic-record winning time of 27 minutes, 05.10 seconds.

African star Kenenisa Bekele will make his first outdoor UK track appearance by running at the Norwich Union British Grand Prix in Gateshead next month.

KENENISA BEKELE maintained his stranglehold on cross-country running with another spectacular double at the world cross-country championships in Brussels.

Paula Radcliffe has been named Runner of the Year for 2003 by Race Results Weekly, the leading USA wire service for distance running.

ELIUD KIPCHOGE of Kenya won a thrilling men’s 5,000 metres world final in Paris denying Hicham El Guerrouj a second title at the championships.

KELLI WHITE of the United States became the first woman since East Germany’s Katrin Krabbe in 1991 to clinch the world championship sprint double when she won the women’s 200 metres title in Paris last night.

Former Commonwealth 1500m champion Peter Elliott has hit out following double World Cross Country champion Kenenisa Bekele’s withdrawal from Saturday’s Balmoral Road Races.

Ethiopia has won the World Cross Country Championships today at Leopardstown. The 12,000 metre race was won by Bekele.