Dashing... Peter Emelieze and Masashi Eriguchi of Japan flexing on the boards.

Peter Emelieze is the only Nigerian athlete confirmed to participate in today’s Aviva Grand Prix at the Birmingham National Arena.

With a season’s best of 6.62 seconds achieved last week in Düsseldorf, Germany Emelieze will be hoping to upstage the likes of Kim Collins and Lerone Clarke. Nigeria’s leading sprinter Ogho-Oghene Egwero with a season’s best of 6.60 seconds is not confirmed for the Birmingham meet.

Collins and Clarke are the top favorites for prize. Collins leads the world with his 6.50 St Kitts and Nevis record from the Karlsruhe heats. But Clarke beat the 34_year_old in the final there and the Commonwealth 100m champion is only a fraction slower with 6.52 this season.

British hopes rest on Harry Aikines Areetey, Craig Pickering and Mark Lewis Francis, the British two, three, four at last week’s trials. Lewis Francis was beaten by Collins in the 2002 Commonwealth 100m final, and pipped to the 2010 Commonwealth title by Clarke last October.

The ever up_for_it Collins also goes in the 200m against USA’s Mike Rodgers, the World indoor 60m silver medallist, and Germany’s Sebastian Ernst.

Gloria Asumnu and Me’Lisa Barber are the leading names in the women’s 60m, although Ruddy Zang Milama, who took bronze at the world indoors in Doha last year, is also in form. The Gabonese athlete has already raced 12 times this year, and clocked 7.15 on three occasions.

She also broke her national 200m record in Gent last weekend and will be looking to improve that again in the one_lap race here. She faces Bianca Knight, the American making her 2011 debut, plus Shareese Woods and Alexandria Anderson.

The women’s 400m gives converted heptathlete Kelly Sotherton a chance to test her new_found prowess as a quarter_miler against some of the world’s best, not least Novlene Williams Mills, the 2007 world bronze medallist outdoors. Sotherton seeks to take a few more tenths from her PB of 53.46 which brought victory in Sheffield. Another Jamaican Clora Williams and USA’s Shana Cox are also in the line_up.

Fourteen World records have been broken at Birmingham’s National Indoor Arena over the years, including Wilson Kipketer’s 1000m mark, which has stood since 2000. The great Dane’s figures of 2:14.96 are the target for Abubaker Kaki as the distance races will again be to the fore at the penultimate IAAF indoor permit meeting of 2011.

Kaki has made no secret of his desire to claim the record, having broken the World junior mark when he ran 2:15.77 at the GE_Galan in Stockholm three years ago. At his best, there’s little doubt he’s capable – he lowered his own Sudanese record to 2:13.62 outdoors last summer.

But the World indoor 800m champion has had a slightly mixed start to the 2011 season – not surprising, perhaps, given his recent Egyptian ordeal when he was trapped for days in a Cairo sports centre during January’s political unrest. He opened well enough, winning the 800m in Stuttgart in a world leading 1:45.02, but then dropped out of the race in Liévin ten days ago after being spiked on the first lap.

Today he’ll have able company from two other sub_2:20 men – the Kenyans Richard Kiplagat and Boaz Lalang.