ON THE morning of the World Athletics Final here yesterday, two groups of athletes crossed paths outside the meeting hotel. Going in was Meseret Defar and friends, coming out Tirunesh Dibaba and company. The two groups stopped to talk but, in the criss-cross of conversation, not a word was exchanged between Defar and Dibaba.

Ethiopia’s two best women athletes are locked in a cold war and rivalry that have given fresh impetus to a grand-prix circuit bored rigid by Africa’s domination of the middle-distance events. Defar and Dibaba, though they will not admit it publicly, cannot stand the sight of each other.

First they fell out over race tactics, then Defar cost Dibaba $125,000 (£67,000) in an act of revenge. Defar, the Olympic champion and world record-holder for 5,000 metres, and Dibaba, the world champion at 5,000 and 10,000 metres, met twice in the two-day climax to the grand-prix season here. Defar, having finished second to Dibaba in the 5,000 metres on Saturday, reversed the one-two in the 3,000 metres yesterday. On neither occasion did the runner-up congratulate the winner.

Underneath the stands, where the athletes collect their kit, both days brought a repeat of the Golden League finale in Berlin the weekend before. The two athletes ignored each other and left separately. Defar even went so far as to dispute the result of the 5,000 metres, which Dibaba had won by the smallest victory margin of the weekend, 0.01sec.

Among those here lapping up the spat was Steve Ovett — he of the 1980s Coe-Ovett cold war. “Having experienced the Ovett-Coe scenario, I can appreciate what they are going through,” Ovett said. “The fascinating thing is that you always assume that the African nations run as teams, but that does not seem to be the case in this situation.”

Ovett and Coe, British world record-breakers and Olympic champions in the middle distances, had no time for each other off the track and rarely raced, while Dibaba and Defar have now met seven times this season. Mark Wetmore, the agent to both, is understood not to have wanted Dibaba to compete here but she was eager for retaliation after her defeat by Defar in Berlin.

The intensity of the rivalry can be traced to the fifth and penultimate Golden League 5,000 metres race of the season in Brussels. With the pair on course to break the world record, Defar was left setting the pace after the rabbit dropped out. Urging her countrywoman to take a share, Dibaba refused and went on to win. Nine days later, in Berlin, Defar struck back.

Needing to win to earn a $125,000 share of the $500,000 (£268,000) jackpot for athletes winning at all six league meetings, Dibaba lost out in a last-lap sprint against Defar. At a time when sport seems to trip from one corruption or cheating scandal to the next, the rivalry between the two Africans ensured that collusion was the last thing on their minds.

It would have been easy to have reached an agreement whereby Dibaba won in Berlin and under which both athletes benefited financially. “It is nice to see there is not that behind-the-scenes ‘you win this one, I’ll win that one’, which we thought might go on,” Ovett said.

Before Berlin, Dibaba had said Defar was her “friend and sister”, precisely the phrase used yesterday by the latter towards the former. It is not the done thing for Ethiopian athletes to speak badly of each other, even if their actions tell a different story.

Defar and Dibaba may not be sisters, but Kenenisa and Tariku Bekele are definitely brothers Kenenisa, who has made his name with a profusion of world records and titles, won the 5,000 metres. His brother won the 3,000 metres. This added up to two titles more for one family than for the whole of Great Britain. Becky Lyne, fifth in the 800 metres, was the best of the Britons all weekend.