Start and finish points have yet to be named, as have stopovers, with one plan calling for the yachts to take only a 24-hour break from racing at three “pit stops” and completing the course in less than 100 days.At the centre of negotiations has been Sweden’s Ludde Ingvall, who recently skippered one of the yachts involved, Nicorette, to a transatlantic crossing in record time. The 84-foot maxi is back to lower that mark, though this time the boat is being steered by the Welshman Eddie Warden Owen, a former America’s Cup competitor and coach.The man who set that record, Chris Law, will also be racing, but in his new role as principal helmsman of the big boat in the 1997 British Admiral’s Cup team, Graham Walker’s Corum Indulgence.In Cherbourg, France, as 16 yachts prepared to start tomorrow’s Round Europe Race, plans to announce a rival to the Whitbread Round The World Race have been delayed.A move by the former Whitbread skipper, Pierre Fehlmann, to organise a race in identical 80-foot Grand Mistral yachts had to be dropped as sponsors failed to support the event. However, building of the yachts continued and five of them, now controlled by the Banque International de Luxembourg, are sailing in the Round Europe.It has long been expected that a race around the world would be organised for them, though the details were not fixed. Tides have dictated an early start for this year’s Hoya Round the Island Race, with the competitors crossing the Royal Yacht Squadron Line in groups from 6.30am. Hopes are high that the brisk east to north- easterly breeze that has been dominant for the past couple of days will be maintained, giving fast conditions down the western Solent and out past the Needles rocks and lighthouse.
The monohull record of 5hr 12min 3sec is held by Mike Slade’s Hoya Longabarda.

A buzz of expectation was sweeping through Cowes last night as more than 1200 yachts prepared for the annual race around the Isle of Wight in conditions that appear perfect for breaking records. With side bets, his stake went up to pounds 16,000 – nearly pounds 250,000 by today’s reckoning. Almost enough to get Johnson and Bailey to their SkyDome starting blocks.. Allardice was a wealthy Scottish landowner, but he himself – rather than one of his footmen – took part in a challenge of walking 1,000 miles in 1,000 hours for 1,000 guineas. The rival groups were each said to be intent on arranging for their man to lose.George, who had to turn professional to take up Cummings’s challenge in 1885, estimated he made pounds 5,000 in two years.But even those gains did not match the profit made by Captain Barclay Allardice in 1809.

For the first of their mile races, in 1885, 30,000 had turned up to watch.That particular source of revenue for challenge racers disappeared in scandalous circumstances two years later, however, when riots between supporters of two sprinters – Harry Hutchens and Harry Gent – culminated in the stadium being burned to the ground. The same format had been used the previous year, and for each race the winner received pounds 100. Additionally, the runners shared the gate receipts after expenses had been paid, a source of revenue that was at least as lucrative. The Briton won, recording 91/4 seconds, and earned himself pounds 50.Forty years on came the celebrated series of meetings between W G George of England and Scotland’s William Cummings, which culminated in a world mile record for George of 4min 123/4 seconds, a mark which stood for 29 years.Twenty thousand spectators were present at London’s Lillie Bridge stadium on 23 August 1886 for an event billed as The Mile of the Century. “There would be little write-ups in the papers some weeks ahead, but there were scores of challenge matches between individuals, and people would come along to see the better known performers.”In 1844, 2,000 spectators turned up at a stretch of road in Hammersmith to see the US sprinter George Seward – aka, for reasons not now known, The Cockfield Putter – take on Lancashire’s William Robertson over 100 yards. But if the Lillie Bridge runners faced greater physical hazards, they were not walking away empty- handed.George’s milestone was one element in a three-part challenge against Cummings, the other distances being over four and 10 miles.

“Those who got near him slapped and banged him on the back, yelling as they did so: `Good! Splendid! Glorious!’ This continued until all the little remaining breath in George’s body was well nigh beaten out of it.”The worst Johnson or Bailey can anticipate in Toronto is an over-eager TV reporter thrusting a microphone up his nose. On this occasion the hype was justified as a gripping race saw Cummings lose an eight-yard lead on the final lap and collapse 60 yards from home.”Thousands broke loose and rushed madly across the ground towards the victor,” a witness wrote. Aristocrats regularly pitted their servants against rivals from other households, and large wagers were placed on the results. By the 19th century, individual challenges regularly attracted large crowds of spectators – and betters.”There wasn’t a great deal of hype because it didn’t seem to be necessary,” said Peter Lovesey, whose book The Kings of Distance is one of running’s set texts. In his diary of 1663, Samuel Pepys describes a race on Banstead Downs between the Duke of Richmond’s footman and another runner. The hype, at least, is reaching record proportions.Such verbal extravagance has not always been necessary as an accompaniment to a form of racing which has been, in historical terms, central to the sport.The 1906 Street Betting Act, which outlawed wagering at sports events, ended a tradition of challenge matches which went back at least 300 years.

But the restrictions have angered those left out in the cold, such as the double Olympic silver medallist Frankie Fredericks, who has said he will attempt to steal thunder by breaking the 150m world mark in Cardiff today.The underlying challenge is to the sport of athletics, which is seeking to raise its profile worldwide with this latest outcrop of lucrative challenges. The question is: will it catch the kids’ imaginations?The rhetoric of head-to-head matches has been well worked in recent years – in 1985, a re-match between Zola Budd and Mary Decker after their Olympic collision saw the British runner paid $125,000 despite losing.Four years ago, Carl Lewis and Linford Christie each received a fee reputed to be around pounds 100,000 for a meeting billed as a head-to-head in Gateshead, although on that occasion Lewis only managed third place.Such confusion will not occur in Toronto. Both companies are banking on this weekend’s activities stimulating the demand for their goods. This is a party with limited entry.The Toronto extravaganza has a different thrust – it is being built up like a heavyweight boxing match, with Johnson and Bailey slighting each other and maintaining their own claims to be the fastest man in the world.The evidence is this: Johnson completed the second half of his Olympic 200m final in 9.20sec – significantly faster than Bailey’s world record from a standing start of 9.84.The Canadian, however, points to the fact that he was timed at 27mph during his 100m final, as compared with Johnson’s top speed of 23mph.Underlying this is Canada versus the United States; and a brand war, between the Adidas man, Bailey, and Johnson, whose golden shoes raised Nike’s profile in Atlanta. Morceli and Gebrselassie both endorse Adidas shoes, and the sportswear manufacturers have put up the money for their challenge.Although there have been reports that two Nike runners – including the current world two miles record holder, Daniel Komen, received an invitation to join the Hengelo party, it appears to have been offered too late to be viable.