Tirunesh Dibaba, the 2008 Olympic champion at 5000 and 10,000 metres will return to the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center in Boston, USA on 7 February, a venue which has twice witnessed her successfully break the World indoor record for 5000m.

The annual Reebok Boston Indoor Games is a happy hunting ground for the eight-time World champion in track and cross-country, and Dibaba this year returns to run the 3000m.

At last year’s meeting (26 Jan) Tirunesh and sister Ejegayehu Dibaba rewrote the season list for the women's 3000m (though three of her compatriots were to run faster indoors later in the winter) as Tirunesh attempted to set the meet record at that distance. Tirunesh won in an indoor PB of 8:33.38, but the record attempt was sunk by a lacklustre second kilometre. At the time Dibaba was very concerned that the muscle cramps that had nearly wrecked her 10,000m World Championship in Osaka the previous summer had returned to haunt her career, despite three months of recovery in late 2007.

But thankfully by the time of the 2008 outdoor such medical worries were completely off the radar and in the aftermath of her standout campaign, which included the first ever 5000/10,000m double by a woman in Olympic history, Dibaba’s World 5000m record at the Bislett Games in Oslo in June was cited as the women’s Performance of the Year at last November’s World Athletics Gala in Monaco.

With an 8:29.55 personal best outdoors standing since July 2006, and in the light of her 2008 form outdoors it would be a great surprise on 7 February if Dibaba did not surpass her 3000m time from last year’s Boston indoor meet, and perhaps the 8:23.72 World Indoor record of compatriot Meseret Defar might also come under threat.

Chris Turner for the IAAF