Cragg starts his season off from the deep end

Athletics/ Boston Indoor Games: As the starting point to a long, ambitious season Alistair Cragg would ideally have avoided the Olympic 10,000-metre champion Kenenisa Bekele.

Yet, the Ethiopian double world record holder heads the 3,000-metres field at the Boston Indoor Games tomorrow night, where Cragg sets off on what will be his first full season as a world class distance runner.

With his career at Arkansas University now behind him, Cragg has found himself setting new goals - which for the first time will mean peaking at the major championships, and specifically the world tests in Helsinki next August.

One likely stop-off along the way is the European Indoor championships in Madrid in early March, but before that Cragg has to regain his racing mindset.

As Ireland's only male track finalist at the Athens Olympics, the 24-year-old is still on course to make a real impact in world distance running. His 13:12.74 clocking for 5,000 metres last summer made him the second fastest European of the year.

But even then he was carrying a hernia injury, which for the second time required an operation on his return from Athens.

Training has progressed as planned over the winter, and tomorrow's race in Boston should be the proof of that.

Bekele is expected to win and win well, even though it is his first race since the sudden death of his Ethiopian fiancée Alem Techale earlier this month.

Still overseeing Cragg's development is his former Arkansas coach, the Mayo-born John McDonnell. Last March Cragg broke Frank O'Mara's long-standing Irish indoor record for the 3,000 metres with his 7:38.69, but McDonnell is cautious about predicting that sort of time tomorrow night.

"All last summer Alistair was running in pain," said McDonnell, "but since last October he has been a new man, and he is running with a new freedom, without a hint of pain or discomfort which definitely inhibited his movement all last year.

"He was also disappointed about finishing 12th in the Olympic final because he had set himself a goal of at least finishing in the top 10, and now he wants to make up for that disappointment this year. He has some very serious targets in mind for the coming outdoor season.

"I know he will run some fast times this year, but that's not really what matters. He wants to get some medals and that is what he will be striving for in the next two or three years and right up to Beijing in 2008."

The South-African born Cragg is the only Irish representation in Boston tomorrow, confirming that the changing of the guard in Irish middle distance running is complete - and Cragg now shoulders the main Irish hopes.