Meadows puts a home victory above breaking Holmes' record

Meadows has Holmes' seven-year-old British 800 metres indoor record in her sights after a strong start to the season with victories in Glasgow and Sheffield.

The 28-year-old set a new stadium record at the World Trials and UK Championships last weekend, clocking two minutes 00.91 seconds despite the race effectively becoming a solo time-trial. Her personal best of 1:59.52secs, also set in Birmingham last year, is just 0.31 seconds outside the record set by Holmes in Belgium in 2003.

But the World Championship bronze medallist wants a victory more than anything as she continues her build-up to the World Indoor Championships in Doha next month. "If a British record comes along, then fantastic, but first and foremost I want to get the victory, especially on home soil," Meadows said. "I love the track at Birmingham and there's going to be a lot of support for me.

"I want to make sure I'm a contender before Doha and that definitely means trying to beat the other girls who are going to be providing me with really good competition tomorrow."

Despite recording a personal best at the National Indoor Arena last year, Meadows actually finished second behind Great Britain team-mate Marilyn Okoro. But with Okoro out of the picture in 2010, Meadows is now unquestionably British number one – although she has mixed feelings about such status.

"As much as you think, 'I'd like to be British number one,' I've always found it fantastic – especially indoors – that Marilyn's always done it because we've always pushed each other on," she added.

"I remember last year here I was second behind Marilyn but I ran a personal best, and I almost forgot about the PB because Marilyn beat me. That's kind of been the driving force between us girls. Probably since 2006 really we've had each other to chase and running sub two minutes hasn't been good enough. There were four of us last year who broke two minutes and it didn't instantly guarantee that you were going to be on the team.

"It is kind of strange that I am out there on my own this indoor season but it's a position I want to be in. I want to dominate the event in Britain and make sure I'm a contender for Doha as well."

With world heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis again absent through injury, the home crowd's focus will be on Meadows and triple jump world champion Phillips Idowu.

The showdown between European Indoor champion Mo Farah and triple Olympic champion Kenenisa Bekele will not take place however, after both athletes withdrew yesterday.

Farah has not competed since coming third in the Great Edinburgh International Cross Country in January, where he was in some distress when he crossed the finish line. At the end of last year he also collapsed with exhaustion following a duel with eventual winner Alemayehu Bezabeh in the men's European Cross Country Championships in Ireland.

Farah was reported to be not feeling 100 per cent while Bekele, who won the 5,000 and 10,000m double at last year's World Championships in Berlin, has a calf injury.

Meanwhile, Kenyan athletics chiefs have set new rules for managers who look after young athletes, saying runners must not enter road races until cleared by federation chiefs.

"We told them not to enter any athlete in a road race until clearance is sought from us," Athletics Kenya (AK) chairman Isaiah Kiplagat said after a meeting with 24 managers on Thursday.

"We are planning ahead, not just mesmerised by huge cash prizes at lucrative meetings as many managers seem to be. Top on our agenda is to boost track medals at major championships like next year's world championships in South Korea and the 2012 Olympics in London," he said. AK and agents have had a problematic relationship in the past. Agents have accused the federation of telling them how to conduct their business while some athletes have defected to foreign countries, saying there was a hostile environment in Kenya.

British agent Ricky Simms said the meeting had been successful. "I wish not to comment on the issue of Linet Masai but the meeting was nice and friendly because Athletics Kenya only wants to know where their athletes are running. It was about co-operation," said Simm, whose attempt to enter world 10,000 metres champion Masai in the world's richest half-marathon in Abu Dhabi last month was vetoed by AK.

Kiplagat said: "We told them (agents] to toe our line if they want us to work together. Sammy Kitwara and Gideon Ngatuny had promising careers on the track, until their managers diverted them to run road races."

Kitwara, 24, was dropped from Kenya's world championship team last year. He won the national 10,000m title but later defied AK's order not to run in road races. Ngatuny, 24, Kenya's 2008 cross country 12km champion, won the Sapporo half-marathon race last year also after defying AK.

"We did not want Linet to join that list, hence agreed with managers, Linet's included, that prior permission must be sought from us to enter any athlete in road races," Kiplagat said. "We don't want our athletes to be lured by huge appearance money from road races. At 21, Linet still has a long way on the track. We want her to win a gold at the 2012 London Olympics."