Gebrselassie reached halfway in 4 min 00.77 sec, little more than a second slower than Bannister achieved for history’s most celebrated single mile, after his morning medical studies in the laboratory of St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington.Tony Whiteman, the European indoor 1500m silver medallist from Kent, had assumed the burden of pacing duties from Croatian Branko Zorco at that stage but Gebrselassie was left to run the final 1,300 metres alone. Amid the 20,000 groans which greeted the final flash of the trackside clock, however, Gebrselassie, regarded as an honorary Dutchman, given his summer-time residency in the country, reclaimed the two miles world record he lost to Kenya’s Daniel Komen last summer. He did so, moreover, by the not inconsiderable margin of 2.46 seconds. With a time of 8 min 1.08 sec, he truly earned his stripes in the race billed as the Adidas Two Miles Duel.
In fact, the duel was between Gebrselassie and the clock, Noureddine Morceli having fallen off the pace by the halfway mark. The Algerian world and Olympic 1500m champion dropped out before the final lap, which he spent nobly urging his intended rival to win his race against time.The barrier which confronted both men was twice that which Roger Bannister breached at the Iffley Road track in Oxford on 6 May 1954. The $1m prize at stake for running the first back-to-back four-minute miles proved tantalisingly beyond the grasp of the world and Olympic 10,000m champion. By the end of eight compelling circuits of the Fanny Blankers-Koen Stadium in Hengelo, time had stood still for 1.08 seconds, too long for the world’s greatest ever distance runner to claim the booty and a place in the sport’s history as the man who performed the barrier-breaking Bannister double.

Rafter now meets his compatriot Mark Woodforde, a surprise winner over Spain’s Albert Costa, and there is the guarantee of at least one non-seed in the semi-finals.. Haile Gebrselassie earned nothing more than his stripes, three of them, even though the Ethiopian phenomenon launched track and field’s heralded head-to-head weekend with a breathtaking world record run in the Netherlands last night. The biggest casualty of the day was the No 6 seed and last year’s Wimbledon champion Richard Krajicek, who lost in four sets to Patrick Rafter of Australia. But she is happy not to be so much the centre of attention now, and nobody will relish meeting her. In today’s fourth round she will meet Mary Pierce, a 6-3 6-1 winner over Sandrine Testud, also of France.The upsets occurred in the men’s event, where there are just six seeds left in the last 16. It is nearly two years since Seles re-appeared on the scene, and she still has just the one Grand Slam title to show for her comeback – that can be blamed, to a large part, on a succession of injuries.The all-out attacking Seles remains a distant memory, to herself as much as anyone “I’m getting too defensive too often,” she said. The last of these was when she broke Hingis to 3-5 in the second set, thus salvaging some dignity.Monica Seles, champion here from 1990-92, spent only 10 minutes longer on the court than Hingis had in beating the local Natalie Tauziat, 6- 0 6-1.

As a pure stroke-maker, Kournikova gave nothing to her opponent, but Hingis’s court craft was in a different league. As one observer remarked, “Kournikova plays shots, Hingis plays points.”There were a couple of statistical curios: the match contained no deuces and the four games Kournikova won she did so for the loss of a single point. “I’m the No 1 in the world,” she added, “so I should have the right to say what time I want to play.”The match eventually took place in afternoon sunshine, with a stiff breeze keeping the flags flying on the court’s parapets and blowing up clouds of red dust that caused the players to turn and shield their eyes. “I have much more pressure on me because I cannot get the experience the way Martina can.”No doubt there is some truth in this. But it also overlooks the two meetings Kournikova and Hingis had as juniors – at Wimbledon and the US Open in 1994 – when Hingis won 6-4 6-3 and 6-0 6-0. “I knew I always beat her, always been better than her,” said Hingis loftily.It certainly has not taken Hingis long to become rather grand in her dealings with people.

Her match against Kournikova was originally scheduled to be first on the Centre Court, which would have meant an 11am start “I’m not a very good morning person,” she said. “Everyone knows that I just don’t go out to play first match there.” The knee injury she still has not quite got over since she fell from a horse two months ago was another factor, so she asked for the match to be put back. “This match was a perfect example of not being allowed to play more,” she said. There was none of the uncertainty Hingis had betrayed in her second-round meeting with the Italian Gloria Pizzichini as she strolled to a 6-1 6-3 victory in a mere 42 minutes.
The future of the women’s game was written all over this match.