Johannesburg - Versatile South African Rene Kalmer will put her own 5 000m plans on hold this weekend when she sets the pace in a planned world record attempt at the Fanny Blankers-Koen Games, an IAAF World Challenge meeting, in Hengelo on Sunday.
Kalmer initially expected to chase the Commonwealth Games qualifying mark in her first outdoor 5 000m race of the season, but will instead try and pull Ethiopian Meseret Defar through the halfway mark as the tiny Ethiopian hunts down international teammate Tirunesh Dibaba's global mark.
"The plans have changed. I'm now going to pace Defar in a world record attempt," Kalmer said on Thursday.
"There will be two pace makers, and the first girl will take us through 1 000m, or 1 500m if she can. Then I'm taking Defar through the 2 000m mark, and hopefully a bit further.
"She wants us to run 68 seconds a lap, and I'm confident I'll be able to do that for five laps (2 000m), but I'll try my best to take her through 2 500m."
Defar is the second fastest woman ever over 5 000m, courtesy of the 14:12.88 she clocked in Stockholm in July 2008, and the 26-year-old will be out to improve the 14:11.15 world mark set by perennial rival Dibaba.
And few would bet against her. Defar has not run outdoors yet this year, but she was in sublime form in the European indoor season.
She twice narrowly missed her own world records - first falling only 0.74 seconds of her 3 000m mark in Stuttgart in February, and four days later missing her 5 000m record by 0.42 seconds in Stockholm - before winning her fourth consecutive world indoor 3 000m title in Doha in March.
Two other South Africans will look to go all the way in the men's 800m race.
World champion Mbulaeni Mulaudzi, who set a blistering season's best of 1:43.78 in Doha two weeks ago, will face the likes of double world indoor champion Abubaker Kaki from Sudan and former world outdoor champion Alfred Yego from Kenya.
A fast race is expected from the stellar line-up and Kenyan Wilfred Bungei's seven-year-old meeting record of 1:43.01 will be under threat.
Samson Ngoepe, who was ninth in Hengelo last year, toes the line in his first race since pulling up injured in the heats of the South African Championships in Durban in March.
The 25-year-old, a semifinalist at the World Championships in Berlin last year, will look to hit the ground running as he gets his season off to a belated start.