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At the 2011 Melbourne Track Classic, Ben St Lawrence gave two- time world champion Bernard Lagat a shock, drawing level with 80m to go in the 5000m. Lagat won by only four strides in the end but St Lawrence clocking a personal best of 13:10.08 to beat several sub-13min men including Americans Chris Solinsky, Matt Tegencamp and Craig Mottram. A few months later, St Lawrence continued his good form by smashing the 10,000m national record at the Stanford Payton Jordan invitational meet. St Lawrence slashed almost five seconds from the previous mark, clocking 27min 24.95sec. The rate of improvement from this Sydney base runner has been phenomenal.

Since the qualifying period opened, St. Lawrence already holds a B Olympic qualifier over the 5000m and an A Olympic qualifier for the 10,000m.

Looking ahead towards London, Collis Birmingham is another contender that has chosen to focus on the 5000m rather than the 10,000m or the marathon. Birmingham says, "This year I'm focused on just getting fit because next year will be the biggest year you'll get in athletics." Looking to put his interrupted 2011 season behind him due to injury, Birmingham managed to finish off his 2011 season being the best placed Australian over the 5000m at the Daegu World championships. Birmingham already has one A Olympic qualifier under his belt having posted a 13.15.70. Hopefully we can see this 2008 Olympian continue again with his climb of improvements heading towards London.

Other athletes you need to keep your eyes open for over the 5000m and 10,000m this coming season is David McNeill and New Zealanders 2008 Olympic representative over the 5000m Adrian Blincoe and 2011 World championship finalist in the 5000m, Jake Robertson.

WOMEN

Two time 10,000m national title holder Eloise Welling’s sets her sights on making the London Olympics after her disappointing season ending in Daegu, which saw her withdraw from the women’s 10,000m due to injury. Welling’s, who has already run 31.41.31, achieving the Olympic A standard by 4 seconds. 

Other contenders looking to lower their personal bests to get closer to the Olympic 5000m (15:15.00) or 10,000m (31:45.00) A standard this season will be 2008 Zaptopek winner Lara Tamsett, 2011 open national cross country champion Emily Brichacek, Commonwealth games representative in the 5000m (2002) and 10,000m (2006) Anna Thompson, City to surf winners (2009) Melinda Vernon and Jess Trengrove (2011). 

The last, of course, sums up Aussie reaction to the fall which cost Sally Pearson US$40,000 and an undefeated season.

There were highlights aplenty around the letter ‘B’ without having to worry about the other 25 letters of the alphabet.

The main questions were: Bekele – back or B-A-C-K; Blake – wow! Did he really run that; and Bolt – can he beat Blake at London 2012 once his younger colleague has another year’s development.

Like everybody else, I was initially flummoxed as to how Kenenisa Bekele could run a world-lead 26:43.16 in Brussels just 19 days after stepping off the track 15 laps into the world championships 10,000 metres in Daegu.

It didn’t seem possible, even for one professing the ‘winning is everything’ ethos of Bekele. Indeed, so strongly does the Ethiopian superstar hold to that belief that he re-defined his ‘loss’ in Daegu.

“I don't count it a as a defeat because I didn't finish the race; I still feel I have a 100% record at 10,000m,” Bekele said at a pre-Brussels press conference. “I know that I went there (Daegu) without a lot of good training behind me but I went because sometimes surprises can happen.”

Given that he said much the same thing when Zersenay Tadese snapped his string of consecutive world cross-country titles in Mombasa in 2007 (Bekele also failed to finish there), we can only conclude that ‘King Kenny’ processes both oxygen and thought in a profoundly different way to the rest of us.

(Declaration of interest here: I’ve got to go with the (majority) view that a ‘dnf’ counts as a loss. One of my few claims to fame is undefeated records over both Waldemar Cierpinski (2-0) at marathon and Miruts Yifter (1-0) at half-marathon.

Looking for a possible answer, I went back to my race notes from the Daegu 10,000. The pace for the first 5000 metres was 13:52.51 – with pretty well no variation other than a 61.56 fourth lap from Tadese when he first took the lead and a sub-65 twelfth lap after the pace had dropped to 67s again.

Even that second surge had an impact on Bekele who was running in the pack, but a little further back than you would expect. He eventually covered it, but only after allowing a little gap to develop which he then had to work hard to close. The very next surge – a 63.73 fifteenth lap led by who else but Tadese – prompted his early exit.

Now, I didn’t see the Brussels race live, but I suspect it was even-paced. For a start, Tadese wasn’t in it; for another thing, it was paced, and rabbits don’t get their carrots if the pace is all over the place.

The splits – 13:26.63/13:16.53 - reflect this. Taking out the last lap – around 57 seconds – it was basically 24 laps at 64.5, followed by a sprint home.

This could explain Bekele’s seemingly inexplicable improvement from Daegu to Brussels. Our view of the world championships race was coloured by several factors and assumptions chiefly that Bekele wouldn’t be there if he were not capable of winning; that he came in with an undefeated record at the distance, including four world championships and two Olympic titles; and that he was the world record holder.

Stripped of those assumptions, did we really see anything in Daegu to suggest he could not have run 25 laps at 64-65 seconds per lap. Conversely, did we see anything in Brussels to suggest he is again capable of running the sort of race he could not 19 days earlier.

That is why it might be safe to say Kenenisa Bekele is back, if not yet B-A-C-K. Given the incentive of an unprecedented third Olympic gold medal at the distance, though, he may well be by July next year.

Yohan Blake’s triumph in the 100 metres in Daegu was inevitably diminished by the disqualification of Usain Bolt. Given Bolt had won the two previous global championships in world records, that is hardly surprising.

Blake’s 19.26 over 200 in Brussels, however, upstaged everything else including Bekele and Bolt’s world lead 9.76 in the 100.

A few points, however. First, Blake chose the favourable lane seven in light of his self-professed difficulty on the bend – “I’m not a good turner,” as he put it. He’ll either need to become a ‘good turner’ or get used to a tighter lane if he is to challenge Bolt in London. The only way he will get lane seven in a championship final is if he engineers his way into the slower four qualifiers.

Second, conditions may have been helpful. The tailwind was 0.7 metres per second, but that is in the straight. It may have been stronger on the bend (equally, it may not!).

Third, Walter Dix was second in both races. The American finished 0.30 behind Bolt at the world championships, but only 0.26 behind Blake. He ran 19.70 in Daegu, 19.53 in Brussels. Give Bolt the 0.30 margin over Dix in Brussels and he ‘runs’ 19.23. So, all things being equal, Bolt remains ahead of Blake – but only just.

The stage has been set for an exciting match-up between training partners Bolt and Blake in London – not to mention at the Jamaican championships some weeks before that. It is to be hoped Bolt v Blake v Powell v ‘the rest of Jamaica’ does not follow the same path as Bolt v Gay v Powell.

The 100 metres is simple. Bang! Get to the other end as quick as you can. There are minor tactical considerations in jumps and throws – deciding which heights to attempt in the vertical jumps, for example – but it’s still basically jump as high, or far, as you can; throw as far as you can.

Not so the distance events which, by their nature, take time to unfold. Even on those rare occasions when some brave soul opts to run as fast as they can, as long as they can, there is still the question of whether he or she can go the distance.

As with the race, so with the 2011 season. Change is in the air as hitherto seemingly invincible practitioners appear suddenly vulnerable. Can they hold off those banging at the gates for one more year, or will new champions emerge. How will it all unfold.

In both Beijing 2008 and Berlin 2009, Kenenisa Bekele ruthlessly dispatched all challengers to his domination of the men’s track distances. He won the 5000/10,000 metres double on both occasions – the longer distance with relative ease, the shorter with tactically complete performances.

Tirunesh Dibaba was not as dominant on the women’s side – she did not run in Berlin at all – but has been the pre-eminent performer in women’s distance events, winning the 5/10 double at the Beijing Olympic Games and Helsinki 2005 world championships, and one gold medal at every championships (except the 2004 Olympics) since Paris 2003.

With six weeks until the world championships open (with the two 10,000s on the first two days), neither is an assured participant in Daegu, though Bekele at least has assured entry as a dual defending champion. The fortunes of Bekele and Dibaba will be another element of the unfolding drama over the next few weeks.

The apparent decline of the ruling generation goes beyond these two. Many of the strongest challengers are also likely to be absent or are in questionable form.

Meseret Defar, Dibaba’s Ethiopian arch-rival, has had a patchy time of it though she, at least, looks to be building into some form, with a sub-14:30 5000 at the Paris DL followed by a 31:05 10,000 in Sicily.

Like Dibaba, though, Defar does not look the irresistible force she has been.

Elvan Abeylegesse, the former Ethiopian now running for Turkey, is another who is sidelined. She is expecting a child. Abeylegesse’s aggression in her ultimately unsuccessful attempt to thwart Dibaba in the Olympic 10,000 produced one of the most unforgettable contests of the Beijing Olympics.

Vivian Cheruiyot (5000) and Linet Masai (10,000) are the reigning world champions and the Kenyan pair are both likely to be formidable in Daegu. Cheruiyot is saying she would like to attempt the double.

On the men’s side, Sileshi Sihine, number two to Bekele in so many races, is not at his top. Two others to have challenged Bekele – Eritrea’s Zersenay Tadese and Uganda’s Moses Kipsiro – are sidetracked. Kipsiro has suffered from malaria and typhoid, though he still plans to compete in Daegu. Tadese seems to be torn between the track and the roads. All three of these athletes have solid current track times, but don’t seem to be the forces they were.

The other intriguing possibility opened up by the current situation is that a non-African runner could step up. Mo Farah – Somali born but raised in Britain – Galen Rupp and Matt Tegenkamp are all among the possible men’s 10,000 medallists. Shalane Flanagan is a threat in the women’s 10,000.

Flanagan (Beijing 2008) and Kara Goucher (Osaka 2007) have already been bronze medallists at 10,000, but neither was a factor in deciding the race. The exciting thing about 2011 is that, for the first time since Craig Mottram in the Helsinki 2005 5000 or Paula Radcliffe in women’s 10,000 before that, we are looking at a non-African runner being right in the winning mix.

 Farah has undoubtedly stepped up a level since moving to the US to train with Rupp, and others, under Alberto Salazar. His closing speed in running the fastest 10,000 of the year (at the Pre Classic) and winning the 5000 at the Birmingham DL was most impressive.

Rupp is yet to impose himself on an international race in similar fashion but, three years younger than Farah, gives every impression that he soon will.

For a different reason – injury, in his case – Mottram may still be a year away from 2005 form, but he, too, is showing every sign of getting back into contention for Daegu and London.

Flanagan showed her class in taking a bronze medal behind Cheruiyot and Masai at the world cross-country in Punta Umbria earlier this year. She also showed her development, as the previous year she had not been able to put herself right in the race.

At the US championships, Flanagan ran from the front in finishing comfortably ahead of Goucher. It seems she is a good chance to take a medal again in Daegu.

Whatever happens, there is a lot more drama to unfold in the track distance races yet.

1500m - Sebastion Coe-Olympics