Boston, USA - It should be enough to say that both Tirunesh Dibaba and Meseret Defar, Ethiopia's "Dueling Ds," will be racing at the Boston Indoor Games on Saturday, although not against each other. But such a brief meet preview would be a disservice to the other top-ranked athletes competing in the first major fixture of the North American indoor season, not to mention raising suspicions of laziness on the part of the reporter.

A venue for records

2007 will be the fifth consecutive year Defar and Dibaba have run at the Reggie Lewis Center, and for Defar, that has meant a streak of four consecutive wins, three times at 3000m and once at 5000m, the first two over Dibaba. But in 2005 and 2006, the two split races, with Dibaba running the longer race and Defar the shorter, and the results have been spectacular.

In 2005, Dibaba ran the still-standing world record of 14:32.93 for 5000m, and last year she ran 14:35.46, the second-fastest mark ever.  After her grueling European campaign in 2006, where she won six out of seven 5000m races - with the only loss coming to Defar - Diababa may be ready to make another run at her own world mark, with her favorite pacemaker, her older sister Ejegayehu, also in the race. Ejegayehu herself is tenth on the all-time list, almost the only pacemaker fast enough to set up a record race for her younger sister.

Third time lucky for Defar?

Except, perhaps, for Meseret Defar. Defar's 2005 (8:30.05) and 2006 (8:30.94) races at 3000m in Boston are fourth and sixth on the all- time list, and they were second and fourth when they were run, before the Russian demolition, led by Liliya Shobukhova, of the 3000m list in February of last year. In 2005, Defar was within a second of the record, perhaps losing the mark to a moment of hesitation when passing a lapped runner.

Defar, too, brings a favourite pacemaker (Sentayehu Ejigu) to Boston, and after her unanticipated outdoor 5000m World record in New York last spring, Defar must be hoping that her third attempt on the speedy Roxbury track will bring her another record; she need only run each kilometer one second faster than her previous attempts to best Shobukhova's 8:27.86 - a time Defar has beaten outdoors.

Both Defar and Dibaba will be urged on by fans from Boston's large Ethiopian population, which first came out to support their country's athletes when Fatuma Roba was dominating the Boston Marathon in the late '90s. In recent years, when stars like Haile Gebrselassie and Kenenisa Bekele ran the Boston Indoor Games, the Ethiopian fans so dominated the atmosphere of the meet that when Bekele miscounted the laps and was defeated by Alistair Cragg at 3000m, Cragg's victory was greeted principally by shocked silence.

Hoffa returns to familiar territory

2006 World Indoor Champion Reese Hoffa, who owned the three longest throws of last year's indoor season, will start his season in Boston as well, throwing against Christian Cantwell, the 2006 outdoor leader, and three-time World outdoor champion John Godina. Hoffa, who declared in 2005 that he would throw in a bear suit, "...but only if I could throw the ball far," has been finding in 2006 that simply dominating the competition is exciting enough.

Mottram, Hooker lead Aussie invasion

This year's Boston Indoor Games also sees an Australian invasion.  Three top athletes are led by Craig "Buster" Mottram, the World Cup 3000m champion and the winner of the two-mile race here last year; Mottram will be running the 3000m, traditionally the encore race of the meeting, matched against Irishman Cragg and Ethiopians Markos Geneti and Gebre Gebremariam.

Commonwealth Games champion Steve Hooker, this year already threatening the six metre barrier in the Pole Vault, will be making his debut in Boston, vaulting against Jeff Hartwig, winner of last weekend’s Pole Vault Summit in Reno. And rounding out the Australian trio is Commonwealth Games 1500m bronze medalist Mark Fountain, who set the Australian indoor mile record here in 2005. Fountain will face Commonwealth silver medalist Nate Brannen of Canada, along with World Championships finalist Alan Webb and Ivan Heshko of Ukraine.

While short on athletes with international credentials, the men's 800m features an interesting footnote. Nick Symmonds, who was the breakthrough second-place finisher at last year's U.S. Outdoor championships, ran a 3:56 mile two weeks ago and has suggested that he may be capable of challenging the event record at the shorter distance, particularly given a field which includes (among others) former World Indoor champion David Krummenacker. The event record of 1:47.92 is among the oldest at the meet, set by Rich Kenah in 1997 and approaching its tenth birthday. Kenah, who won bronze at the World Championships in Athens that summer, is now an employee of Global Athletics and Marketing, the meet organisers, and will almost certainly be on hand to watch Symmonds make his attempt.