KEY POINTS:
In the mid-1980s, a sports shoe company produced an ad showing a pack of African athletes gliding along a dusty trail, the perfect image of synchronised running machines. The poster read: "In my mind, I am a Kenyan."
It was a marketing slogan to inspire weekend warrior joggers, but the implication was clear - to foot it with these guys, you've got to be African.
The evidence for such a claim was incontrovertible. Since the 1970s, African runners have reigned supreme in middle and distance running.
Enter Kimberley Smith - a small, shy, blonde-haired runner out of Papakura, South Auckland.
After a spectacularly successful career as a scholarship athlete at Providence College in the United States, Smith started trekking to Europe four years ago to race in major championship events.
She was a promising 5000m and 10,000m runner, but suddenly she found she was finishing down the back of fields. Ahead of her? Africans, Africans, Africans.
"It was a bit of a shock," Smith, 26, said this week. "In your head, they were unbeatable."
Three weeks ago, a funny thing happened. At an indoor meeting in Boston, Ethiopia's Meseret Defar, an Olympic and world champion, smashed the world two-mile record, running 9m 10s, more than 13s faster than the previous mark.
Right on Defar's shoulder for the whole race was Smith, who crossed the line second in 9m 13s.
Tracking so closely the 2007 world athlete of the year was an incredible confidence boost. Not that she is foolish enough to publicly predict she can beat Defar, or fellow Ethiopian world champion Tirunesh Dibaba. "Those two are in a league of their own, but then, after that is when you start to think it's possible ... "
Especially after her performance last weekend, also at an indoor meeting in Boston. Smith lined up for a mile race, the first time she had run the distance in four years, and won in 4m 24s, six seconds faster than her New Zealand indoor record.
The speed at this stage of the season surprised and delighted her. At last year's world championships in Osaka, Smith finished fifth in the 10,000m, her speed in the last two laps denying her the chance of a medal as the third- and fourth-placed runners pulled away.
"Both those girls were faster than I was, so I knew that was what I needed to work on, and it seems to be paying off," said Smith.
But speed alone does not a winning distance-runner make. The secret is speed plus endurance. So, with coach Ray Treacy she has been boosting her mileage, building up strength for the battles that lie later in the season.
Prime among them will be the Olympics in August, when she will line up in the 10,000m.
Before then, she will compete in the 3000m at the world indoor champs in Spain next month and will probably race in the New Zealand championships in late March.
Then all focus will be on Beijing, her second Olympics. Four years ago, she was a timid, inexperienced young athlete at her first major track championship, finishing 11th in her 5000m heat.
This year, Smith will check into the Olympic Village a battle-hardened top international performer.
