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Olympic hopefuls head indoors in Istanbul

Ennis has been in sterling early-season form © Getty Images

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British Olympic medal hopefuls Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis face the sternest tests of their seasons to date at the Indoor World Championships in Istanbul from March 9-11.

The 5,000m world champion Farah will once again come face to face with American Bernard Lagat, the man he beat into second place in at the World Championships in Daegu, in the 3,000m, while both men will be wary of Kenyan duo Augustine Choge and Edwin Soi, the only runners to have broken 7min 30sec indoors this season.

Ennis will defend her indoor pentathlon title in one of the most hotly anticipated events of the weekend. The Sheffield-based athlete lost her heptathlon title to Russia's Tatyana Chernova in Daegu but has been in blistering form so far this season, and with Ukrainian Olympic heptathlon champion Natalya Dobrynska also in Turkey the stage is set for a contest that may threaten Irina Belova's 20-year-old world record of 4,991 points.

Dwain Chambers has a fight on his hands to retain the 60m title he claimed in Doha. The Briton, who will find out whether or not he will be eligible to run at the Olympics later this month, faces Jamaican duo Lerone Clarke and Nesta Carter, who both beat Asafa Powell in England last month to qualify for the championships. Trell Kimmons of the United States arrives in Istanbul with a world-best 6.45s this season, with Usain Bolt not competing indoors this year.

Holly Bleasdale will come face to face with her idol and rival Yelena Isinbayeva in the pole vault. The 20-year-old Briton produced a stunning British indoor record clearance of 4.87m earlier this year to increase hopes of another British track and field gold medal prospect, only for the Russian Olympic champion to vault an indoor world record 5.01m in Stockholm in February.

Having endured a difficult three years in which she briefly turned her back on the sport, Isinbayeva looks set to dominate in an Olympic season once more, starting with a fourth indoor world title in Turkey. But Bleasdale, getting to grips with a longer pole in an effort to challenge the Russian, and Jenny Suhr of the United States who has cleared 4.88m this season, will have other ideas.

Hurdlers Liu Xiang and Sally Pearson will be looking to lay down markers ahead of the Games this summer. Liu, who limped out of the 110m hurdles in Beijing to the dismay of his countrymen, set an Asian indoor hurdles record of 7.41s in February after enduring an injury-plagued period in his career.

Few athletes have proven as dominant in recent times as Pearson. The Australian is already showing signs of entering the form of her life, having run the fastest 100m hurdles race on Australian soil in the national Olympic trials. Her time of 12.49s is the fastest ever by a hurdler at this stage of the season.

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