As I write this, Oslo’ Bislett Games are only a few hours away.

Meeting three in the IAAF Diamond League series, the Bislett Games scarcely need association with the new track and field showcase for credibility. Rather the reverse, I would think, given Bislett history.

One of the goals the Diamond League aims is to offer more head-to-head competition, so it’s hardly surprising that one of the featured events was the men’s 800 metres in which rising young guns David Rudisha and Abubaker Kaki were to clash.

As much by accident as design, 21-year-old Rudisha and 20-year-old Kaki find themselves at the top of an event which has stagnated since the retirement of world record holder Wilson Kipketer. Neither has achieved his potential as a senior: Kaki is world indoor champion but bombed out at both the Beijing Olympics and the Berlin world championships; Rudisha was run out in the semis in Berlin.

Rather it is the thought of what they might do that excites. Rudisha bounced back from his world championships disappointment with a string of fast times, culminating in a 1:42.01 in Rieti last September which left him behind only Kipketer, Sebastian Coe and Joaquim Cruz _ middle-distance royalty all _ on the all-time list.

Kaki has had extenuating circumstances for his two major championship blow-outs _ sick in Beijing, coming back from a hamstring injury (incurred, ironically, at last year’s Bislett) in Berlin. He looked imperious in taking the world indoor title in Doha, as did Rudisha in wins in Melbourne, Doha and Ostrava this year.

So if neither yet has the status of a Coe or a Steve Ovett, each appears capable of attaining it and it might be a canny thing for the Diamond League to get in early on what could be the next great middle-distance rivalry.

Sport thrives on great rivalries. So often great performers come along in pairs _ Nadaland Federer or Borg and McEnroe in tennis; Bannister and Landy in pursuit of the four-minute mile; Zola Budd and Mary Decker. Sometimes it’s more than two _ Joan Benoit, Grete Waitz and Ingrid Kristiansen in the women’s marathon in the mid-1980s, with Rosa Mota and Lisa Ondieki coming along in the second half of that decade; Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell and Tyson Gay currently in the sprints; Ron Clarke, Kip Keino and Michel Jazy in the 5000 in the 1960s.

And, of course, there was Coe and Ovett in the 800 and 1500 in the late 1970s _ a rivalry given sharper piquancy by the fact they rarely raced against each other.

Coe and Ovett are also an example of how great rivalries do not always play out the way expected. Only at the 1980 Moscow Olympics _ where, ironically, each man won what was regarded as the other’s specialty event _ did the two clash at both 800 and 1500 in peak condition. The scarcity of their meetings led to a series of races, immediately dubbed ‘The Covett Series’, being planned over 3000, 800 and 1500 metres in 1982.

Announced with great hoopla at the end of 1981, the series was a fizzer. Within days, Ovett seriously injured himself when he ran into some iron railings on a training run. He recovered in time to run the 3000 only of the scheduled three races; Coe fell ill in 1982 and missed all three.

Fortunately, in an athletics sense if not commercially, the first race of the ill-fated series saw the emergence of a British saviour in the form of Dave Moorcroft. A fine athlete who won the 1978 Commonwealth 1500 and 1982 Commonwealth 5000 metres titles, Moorcroft chose 1982 for his year of years. He broke Henry Rono’s world record for 5000 metres _ and almost 13 minutes _ in running 13:00.41 in Oslo (Bislett again!) and won the ‘Covett’ 3000 in 7:32.79, a few tenths outside another Rono world record.

Another rivalry which confounded expectations was that between Rob de Castella and Alberto Salazar in the marathon. Salazar ‘broke’ Derek Clayton’s long-standing world record with 2:08:13 in New York in 1981 on a course which turned out to be around 150 metres short, then defeated fellow-American Dick Beardsley in an epic duel in Boston in 1982. ‘Deek’ ran 2:08:18 in Fukuoka in 1981 then won the Commonwealth Games marathon in Brisbane.

Sports management company IMG, which represented both athletes, was desperate to arrange a ‘match race’. Of course, there was the world championships coming up in Helsinki, but the athletes would get nothing to run that and 25 percent of nothing is – nothing. After several possibilities fell through, Rotterdam 1983 saw the meeting of the big two.

It was a magnificent race, won by de Castella in a time only 20 seconds outside his world record after a last-man standing duel with his closest rival over the last five kilometres. Only problem was, his closest rival was not Salazar, but Carlos Lopes. Salazar was fifth; Lopes went on to become Olympic champion the following year and then world record holder the year after that.

Other rivalries, of course, produce great race after great race. Even the invincible Herb Elliott had Merv Lincoln dogging his heels throughout most of his career. One mile race between them was so close that both were given the same time; crucially, Elliott was given the win by an official margin of “inches”; Haile Gebrselassie and Paul Tergat at 10,000 metres; Sonia O’Sullivan and Gabriela Szabo at 5000 (and other distances); Kenenisa Bekele and Zersenay Tadese at 10,000 are others that come to mind.

Come to think of it, by the time this is posted, the result of the Rudisha-Kaki clash will be known. Which of them won? Or did someone upstage them both? Are we on the way to a new grand rivalry? Stand by.