Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele's attempt to complete the long-distance double in the men's 5,000 metres should be the highlight of the final evening of Olympic athletics action today.

The 26-year-old retained his 10,000m title last Sunday but needs his first major 5,000m gold to become the first man to win both since his compatriot Miruts Yifter in 1980. Bekele, who won silver in Athens four years ago, holds the world record at the distance but faces stiff competition from a trio of Kenyans and their former compatriot Bernard Lagat.

Lagat, now running for the United States, won the 1,500m and 5,000m double at last year's world championships and will be desperate for a good showing after failing to reach the final of the middle-distance race in Beijing.

Kenyan world champion Alfred Kirwa Yego qualified fastest for what looks a wide open 800 metres final but his former compatriot Yusuf Saad Kamel, now running for Bahrain, has the best time of the year of those who made the final.

Bahrain will also be hoping for gold from another East African import in the women's 1,500m, where Ethiopian-born world champion Maryam Yusuf Jamal is the only finalist to have run under four minutes this year.

Finland are hoping to win their first Beijing athletics medal in the men's javelin with two strong contenders in world champion Tero Pitkamaki and Tero Jarvenpaa.

Whether it is a gold depends on how well Norwegian Andreas Thorkildsen and Latvian Vadims Vasilevskis perform but they will all hope for better weather than in the heats, where slippery conditions contributed to several leading contenders going out.

Croatia's world champion Blanka Vlasic is strong favourite today for the women's high jump gold with German Ariane Friedrich and Russian Anna Chicherova her likely challengers.

The last two events of the evening are the men's and women's 4x400m relays, where America and Jamaica are likely to renew a rivalry that has gone very much the Caribbean country's way so far.