Barely had Zhou Chunxiu crossed the finishing line of the Flora London Marathon on Sunday than the talk was of the Chinese record-holder facing a possible three-race showdown with the woman she wants to replace as World champion and World record holder. For Zhou seems to be on a collision course to race Paula Radcliffe at the World Championships in Osaka later this year, in London next April and then, perhaps as a best-of-three decider, at the Beijing Olympics. "It will be good to race against Radcliffe," Zhou said. "She is a very good athlete. I look up to her and would like to learn from her.

But both they and the organisers of the Flora London Marathon will have their fingers crossed that Paul Tergat and Haile Gebrselassie will get to the start line on Blackheath in one piece and in top form. "Last year was dreadful," Gebrselassie admitted yesterday, thinking back ruefully to a performance which saw "the wheels fall off" just after 22 miles when the two-time Olympic and four-time World 10,000m champion and multiple World record holder on the track ended up finishing an exhausted ninth in "just" 2hrs 9min, the slowest of his five-race marathon career. I’m healthy and in good shape Tergat, the World marathon record holder, did not even get that far in 2006, withdrawing in the week before the race with injury.

Paris, France - Mubarak Hassan Shami of Qatar and Ethiopian Magarsa Assale Tafa were the clear winners of the 31th edition of Paris Marathon held today on French capital’s streets in front of 200,000 spectators. No less than 35,000 participants ran in the difficult conditions - 20° C. and 68% humidity - yet in spite of the warm weather, Shami produced a 2007 world leading mark of 2:07:19 to win by more than two minutes, while Tafa took the women's race in 2:25:07, winning by more than three minutes. Fast first half takes its toll - Men's race ...

Monte-Carlo - The IAAF’s annual worldwide festival of youth, the IAAF World Athletics Day, one of the busiest weekends in the annual Athletics calendar, is now just over a month away, Saturday and Sunday, 12 & 13 May 2007.