Athletics: Jackson eyes gold at final hurdle

World Indoor Championships: Veteran hopes to sign off in style while Holmes and Fenn look to last the distance

On the eve of the World Indoor Championships, Colin Jackson was presented with a framed photograph at a ceremony conducted by the governing body of track and field, the International Association of Athletics Federations. A gold watch would have been more appropriate. The captain of the Great Britain team happens to have a passion for timepieces. He has more than 70 wristwatches. He also happens to be running out of time in the fast lane. After 18 years as an international sprint hurdler, he has little more than seven seconds left.

When Jackson crosses the finish line in the centre of the National Indoor Arena this afternoon (assuming he makes it that far without falling foul of a 3ft 6in barrier or the new one-strike-and-out false-start rule), the most bemedalled athlete in the history of British athletics will finally slip into track-and-field retirement. He will do it contentedly, whether or not he happens to add a 26th medal to his international championship collection. And judging by his form in his heat and semi-final yesterday, a goodbye wave from the pod-ium is a distinct possibility.

At 36, Jackson remains a smooth hurdling force to be reckoned with. His path to the medal rostrum has had one human obstacle removed in the shape of Terrence Trammell. The reigning champion was hamstrung in his 60m sprint heat on Friday and failed to appear for the heats of his specialist event yesterday. His American team-mate Allen Johnson had a golden glint in his stride as he slowed to a jog after clearing the final hurdle in his heat, still crossing the line first. Johnson, the reigning outdoor world champion, also kept his foot off the pedal in the semi-finals, easing across the line in fourth.

He could be the one to beat, though the fastest qualifying times were posted by Anier Garcia of Cuba (7.49sec), the Latvian Stanislavs Olijars (7.50) and Liu Xiang of China (7.54). Jackson was next fastest, winning his heat in 7.56 and the semi-final in 7.55.

"It really would mean so much to win," he said. "I've never won a major gold in Britain. This is my last chance." At least he has a chance.

In pure athletics terms, the most eagerly awaited contest of the weekend was not Jackson's last stand but the long-awaited showdown between Svetlana Foefanova and Stacy Dragila, the Muscovite and the Californian who have taken the women's pole vault world record to new heights this season. It proved a no-contest.

Dragila, having set the most recent mark at 4.78m in the US championships two weeks ago, arrived in Birmingham talking the talk of raising the bar to 4.88m, the 16ft barrier. In the qualifying round yesterday morning, though, the one-time rodeo rider did not vault the vault. Entering the competition at a modest 4.30m, she ducked under the bar on all three attempts. Her face was thunder as she left the arena, ironically enough in the company of Feofanova, who sailed through to today's final with a first-time clearance at 4.35m. "What do you want to talk about?" Dragila said. "I no-heighted. It's just a bad day at the office."

It was a better day for Kelly Holmes. At 32, the Commonwealth 1500m champion looks handily placed to emerge with a medal from her first major indoor championship on the boards. In the second of three 1500m semi-finals yesterday, she never had to shift into top gear, slipping through on the inside in the home straight to take the second qualifying place in her race, behind Alesya Turova of Belarus, clocking 4min 9.99sec.

Regina Jacobs, the 39-year-old American who last month broke the four-minute barrier in the "metric mile", lines up for today's final as favourite, but Holmes is learning the craft of racing on the boards and clearly benefited from training with Maria Mutola in Johannesburg this winter. "Maria has won so much that you cannot fail to become a better athlete by being with her," she said.

While Holmes bids for her first global title today, Mutola will be trying to win the world indoor 800m crown for a fifth successive time. In her semi-final yesterday the Moz-ambiquan coasted to victory in 1 min 59.99sec. Jo Fenn had a rougher ride in her semi, twice getting clipped from behind, but the north Londoner confirmed her growing authority with a third qualifying place behind Austria's Steffi Graf and the Spaniard Mayte Martinez in 1:59.83.

The part-time professional singer has made records and broken them this winter, eclipsing the British best for 1,000m indoors and the AAA indoor championship 800m record, two marks held by Kirsty Wade, the triple Commonwealth gold medallist who now runs a bed-and- breakfast hotel on the Isle of Lewis. Fenn has a chance of breaking into medal territory today, though she happens to have three formidable rivals in the varying shapes of Mutola, Graf and Jolanda Ceplak.

Mutola and Graf are both blessed with brick-outhouse physiques and once fought a famously bruising running battle at the annual grand prix in Birmingham. "There are some big, strong athletes in the women's 800m," Fenn said, "but I'm a big strong girl too." The Gladiators television series was filmed in the National Indoor Arena, and the British contender is likely to need all her strength, and speed, to make it as a medal winner.