Boston, Massachusetts, USA - Steve Hooker thinks maybe with a different pole, he might have had a better shot at clearing Sergey Bubka's 6.15m World Pole Vault record last weekend (30 Jan) in New York City.

Despite carefully hedging his ambitions after that competition, the Millrose Games in Madison Square Garden, the organizers of this Saturday's Reebok Boston Indoor Games (7) are playing up the Australian Olympic gold medallist's improbable hot streak, and doing their best to recreate Millrose conditions in Boston's Reggie Lewis Center.

Matching conditions in an event measured in centimetres might be impossible, but Boston's organizers took an opportunity to make a large difference when they disassembled the elevated Pole Vault runway used in New York and trucked it to Boston.

While the 200m banked oval in the Reggie Lewis Center is famously fast - an astounding ten of the top sixteen women's 5000m times in history were run here, as well as five of the twenty fastest 3000m marks - until this year, pole vaulters have not had an elevated runway. This did not stop Hooker from jumping 5.81m here in 2007, the U.S. all-comers record until last weekend, but if the runway from which he spring 6.01m is available, why not? The additional consistency of jumping on the same runway two weeks in a row might be enough to give Hooker another shot at 6.16m.

Hooker will be joined by Americans Derek Miles and Tim Mack, both with 5.85m bests undercover, and despite Hooker's dominating performance in New York, the seven-man field would love to use the runway set up for him to out-jump him.

Also taking advantage of the elevated runway will be Jenn Stuczynski and Stacey Dragila, respectively the outdoor and indoor U.S. record holders in the women's Pole Vault. Stuczynski struggled with Dragila last week in New York before earning the win and making three attempts at Dragila's national-record mark.

Stuczynski's famously improvised training facility in northern New York state, consisting of a barely-heated enclosed hallway opening into a quonset hut with standards and pads, led some observers at the Millrose Games to suggest that she might vault even more confidently if the runway was not elevated, but enclosed.

Distances still the headlines

It's unusual enough for a field event to draw this much attention in Boston, a distance-running town which loves its Marathon, but this year for the first time since 2001 neither Meseret Defar nor Tirunesh Dibaba will be competing.

Over the years the two have combined for three World records and several more near-records: refer to the women's marks cited above. This year, however, Defar is challenging her own 3000m mark in Stuttgart. Dibaba, intriguingly, had planned to run the same distance in Boston several hours later, but has since withdrawn, citing insufficient recovery from a minor injury.

The fields are still loaded, however, and the new headliners hold the last two bronze medals in global 10,000m championships.

Shalane Flanagan, the Olympic bronze medallist who ran a 3000m U.S. Record in Dibaba's slipstream here two years ago, will run the 5000m, and she will enjoy the company of Dibaba's favourite pacing team: Ejegayehu "Gigi" Dibaba and Sentayehu Ejigu, the 10th and 11th fastest women in the world at that distance.

Flanagan, who grew up less than an hour away from Boston, holds the outdoor NR at this distance, and if conditions are right her "home crowd" might see her take down Marla Runyan's eight-year old mark of 15:07.33. The record may be easier for Flanagan than a win, with Gigi Dibaba and Ejigu undoubtedly relishing a chance to step out of the younger Dibaba's shadow.

Meet organizers have announced record bonuses for World records in either Pole Vault or the American Record in the 5000m.

At the 3000m distance, Dibaba would have met the woman who took 10,000m bronze behind her in Osaka, Kara Goucher. Goucher, who plans to contest the Boston Marathon in April, is interleaving speed-work on the indoor circuit with her roadwork; last weekend she won the mile at Millrose before coming up to run 18 miles on the Marathon course on Sunday. She'll do another long run on the marathon course, weather permitting, before returning to her home training base.

"I'll start a big eight-week training block on Monday" after the event, Goucher told reporters on Wednesday (4).

The men's Mile will be the marquee event on the men's side, with New Zealand’s Beijing bronze medallist Nick Willis toeing the line again after challenging Bernard Lagat at Millrose. On a wider track with longer bends, Willis will be able to uncoil his stride a bit more, but he will also have to contend with Alan Webb and Rob Myers, two Americans not present in New York.

Webb will be making his first appearance of a 2009 he hopes will be less like his disappointing 2008 and more like his stellar 2007; Myers, who won the New Balance Games at New York's Armory two weeks ago, will be looking for a chance to match his sharp closing speed against Willis.

Sprint stars

Unlike Madison Square Garden, the Reggie Lewis Center has an eight-lane sprint straightaway, and the Boston Indoor Games will have every lane filled. Terrence Trammell, who dominated the 60m Hurdles in New York, will race again in Boston, and the flat winner, Michael Rodgers, will also start in Boston.

There's no hurdles race for women in Boston, so Sally McClellan, the Beijing medallist who was second to Priscilla Lopes-Schliep at Millrose, will run the flat 60m instead. She will face, among others, Bianca Knight and Muna Lee, who finished 1-2 in that event at Millrose.

Parker Morse for the IAAF