"Yes, I am married now," she said, fresh from another encouraging step along the road to Athens - fourth place in the 100m hurdles in the IAAF Golden League meeting in the Stade de France. Glory Alozie had a glint of gold on the wedding finger of her left hand and a smile to match it. It's nice to think you can have that kind of support and recognition from people in a foreign land.". For the past three years he has been a member of the Athenian club Panellinios.

"I'm told I've got my own supporters' club out there," he said "They've done some reports on me on Greek television. In his younger days, Rawlinson was an unsuccessful contender on the Gladiators television show. At 32, he has been a failed challenger for a global championship medal for five years now. This time it might be different for him.Like Mottram at Crystal Palace, Rawlinson will find the Olympic Stadium in Athens something of a home from home. The 25-year-old Londoner recaptured the form that pushed Jonathan Edwards to the limit in the Commonwealth Games triple-jump final in Manchester two years ago, winning with 17.47m - a 47cm improvement on his previous best for the season which hoisted him from 20th to sixth in the world rankings.Chris Rawlinson also timed his competitive send-off to Athens with a confidence-boosting win, finishing two strides clear of James Carter, the American who heads the world rankings in the 400m hurdles.

Never before have a British men's track-and-field team failed to win at least one medal at an Olympic Games. (Britain declined to send a team to the 1904 Games in St Louis, though Tom Kiely, who won the inaugural decathlon, and John Daly, who finished second in the steeplechase, were Irish athletes pedantically listed as representing "Great Britain and Ireland", because Ireland was not recognised as a separate competitive entity at the time.)In the continued absence of a spark from the British 100m men of today, none of whom made it past the heats to the final on Friday night, the biggest flicker of hope at Crystal Palace came from Phillips Idowu. Kelly Holmes (at 800m and 1500m) and Hayley Tullett (at 1500m) are also serious medal contenders, but in the men's team not one athlete happens to be placed in the world's top five.Such a depressing statistic begged the question yesterday, as the British squad moved on from their night at the Palace to a send-off in Trafalgar Square, as to whether the male red, white and blue Olympians of 2004 could be on course for a place in the history books. "Wow, he's fantastic! He went past me like a whippet."The trouble for British athletics is that, in the metaphorical sense at least, the male side is in serious danger of going to the dogs. Of the 58-strong combined men's and women's team chosen for Athens, only two athletes are ranked in the world's top three - Paula Radcliffe (first at 10,000m, second at 5,000m, though intending to concentrate on the marathon in Athens) and Kelly Sotherton (third in the heptathlon). That much was reflected by the reaction of the diminutive Gebrselassie. "The big guy really gave me a hard race," the two-time Olympic 10,000m champion said.

But, to the relief of the Australian press corps gathered at trackside, Mottram emphatically proclaimed he would be holding on to his green-and-gold vest. "You can't have me," he shouted to a lone Briton enquiring about his international intentions. "It's pretty good here in London, but it's not really home to me. I'm an Aussie."It is a great pity for Great Britain, because the towering 24-year-old - known to his mates as "Buster", after Buster Mottram, the former British tennis player - happens to be a big, burgeoning talent. And Mottram's time as runner-up, 12:55.76, was the fastest by a non-African runner who has not infringed the doping rules; the Moroccan-born Belgian Mohammed Mourhit and the German Dieter Baumann were both quicker, prior to suspensions.It was easily the finest display of the night by a British-passport holder.