Powell, Radcliffe, Kenyans highlight Games

MELBOURNE, March 7 (Reuters) Asafa Powell wants to prove he is still the fastest man on earth while Paula Radcliffe will be hoping to banish her Athens Olympics nightmare for good when the duo headline the Commonwealth Games athletics programme.

The March. 15-26 event will be Jamaican Powell's first major competition since his stunning performance last June, when he set a new world mark of 9.77 seconds over the 100 metres to break Tim Montgomery's three-year-old record by 0.01.

''I am still the fastest man on earth,'' Powell declared when he arrived in Melbourne last week after a low-key preparation since a groin injury forced him to miss the world championships in Finland last year.

The burly 23-year-old said he had been running well in Jamaica and was keen to complete his comeback and get back to serious running.

''To win the Commonwealth Games is a really big thing,'' Powell added.

''It is really a stepping stone for me and I would love to win my first race here and then go on to bigger and better things.'' However, Powell will not have it all his way.

Marc Burns and Darrell Brown of Trinidad and Tobago both ran under 10 seconds in 2005 and Ghana's Aziz Zakari is above him in the IAAF world rankings.

Another athlete looking to Melbourne as a positive step will be English distance runner Radcliffe, undeniably the biggest name of the women's programme.

After unexpectedly failing to finish either the marathon or the 10,000m at the 2004 Olympics, Radcliffe won the marathon on the final day of the world championships in Helsinki with a run full of character and courage.

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