HENGELO (The Netherlands), May 28: Olympic champion Kenenisa Bekele will attempt to break his own world 10,000 metres record in his first race of the 2005 outdoor season in this Dutch town on Sunday. The 22-year-old Ethiopian won the world cross country long and short course titles for the fourth time this year only 10 weeks after the sudden death of his teenage fiancee Alem Techale.

Bekele returns to the stadium where he broke compatriot Haile Gebrselassie’s 5,000 mark last year for an assault on his 10,000 mark of 26 minutes 20.31 seconds.

“I feel I am in record-breaking shape,” Bekele said in an interview published on the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) website.

“I have been training for two months in the United States and I am confident of lowering my own mark.”

US sprinter Marion Jones has also entered the Hengelo meeting, although the Euro-Meetings group which organises nearly 50 meetings said this month it would invite neither Jones nor her partner Tim Montgomery to any of its competitions.

Sunday’s meeting will also feature four-time world high hurdles champion Allen Johnson and Cameroon’s Olympic women’s triple jump gold medallist Francoise Mbango.

However, Moroccan Hicham El Guerrouj, who won the Olympic 1,500 gold medal at his third attempt last year before going on to defeat Bekele in the 5,000, will not take part because of undefined health problems.—Reuters