Haile Gebrselassie's 12:41.86 World record at Letzigrund - 13 August 1997 (© Getty Images)
In an intricate waltz, Haile Gebrselassie (ETH) and Daniel Komen (KEN) are swirling their way around the indoor circuit like dancers changing partners every time the music stops.
But here, the change of rhythm is a change of distance and the partners they are switching are world records, as each appearance of the world's two top middle distance runners is a date for an attack on a world record belonging to the other.
The flow of partners is not constant, the steps occasionally falter, but like jealous leading boys in a chorus of two they will repeat the steps when unsuccessful until they have the partner's hand.
The two never dance together... or haven't yet so far this indoor season.. and are unlikely to do so until the 1998 outdoor season nears its close. Their acts succeed one another on the various stages of the indoor circuit, each making his cameo appearance for the greater pleasure and excitement of the crowds of enthusiasts they draw.
The stage today is the Globen Galan indoor meeting in Stockholm, the scene of Gebrselassie's 5000m world indoor record of 12:59.04 last year.
This year, Gebrselassie will be trying to win back the 3000m indoor record Komen waltzed away from him in Budapest on 6 February when he set a new world mark of 7:24.90, before the ink was dry in the record books marking Haile's own 25 January mark of 7:26.14.
And Daniel? He will be running the 5000m in an attempt to wipe Haile's name from that page of the record books too and add the indoor mark to the 5000m outdoors WR he owns since he swept it away from Gebrselassie on that fateful day in Brussels last August 22 - just nine days after the Ethiopian had set his name to the mark in Zürich.
Sean Wallace-Jones for the IAAF
