By Steve Cram BBC Sport

There isn't long to go now until the World Championships, and people are starting to look around for those athletes who have a golden glow about them.

We're now beginning to see which men and women are in the sort of form to take medals in Paris next month.

It's not even early season form we're looking at now. Anyone who is running well now has an excellent chance of keeping that going until the Worlds, barring injury.

Bekele was in awesome form in Lausanne

And there is no-one in more impressive form right now that Kenenisa Bekele.

I wish someone had had a clock on him for the last 300m of his 5,000m win in Lausanne this week. I can't remember seeing anyone kick like that in a long, long time.

We know he ran 52.3secs for the last lap, but he didn't go hard until 300m to go and then eased off for the last 50m. I reckon he ran under 25 seconds for that middle 200m.

If he gets to the World Championships in this sort of nick, I can't see anyone catching him.

At the moment he's looking like doing the 5,000m, probably leaving the 10,000m for next year at the Olympics. If I was Hicham El Guerrouj, thinking about moving up to the 5,000m for the Worlds, I'd stick with the 1500m for sure.

How excited should we get about Bekele? Well, we've been waiting for this for a year or two.

Last year he had a few injury problems which kept him way off his best during the track season, but he had a great winter this year.

You don't win both long and short titles at the World Cross Country by the margins that he did unless you're pretty useful. He was bound to run well on the track, but he looks even better on the track.

He's come along right at the end of Haile Gebrselassie's career, and he'll probably help speed up any decisions Haile has to make about his future.

But Bekele isn't the only who's looking in great shape this year. Felix Sanchez, like Ana Guevara, is still producing the same sort of quality performances as he was at the end of last season.

Sanchez is unbeaten over 18 races

Then there's Kim Collins, the Commonwealth 100m champion, who is quietly putting together a great little series of runs. He has as good a chance in the wide open World Championship 100m as any of the bigger names.

Cornelius Chirchir seems to have taken that step forward. He could give El Guerrouj some bother in the 1500m at the Worlds.

Jana Pittman is another one. This is a big year for her to make the step up and really start to dominate the women's 400m hurdles.

All these guys will be feeling very happy the way things are going. It's when you're running well in April and May that you're not really sure if you've timed it all right.

If you haven't done something encouraging by this time of the year, you're beginning to worry.

Take the example of Paula Radcliffe, who has pulled out of the meet at Crystal Palace next month. She'll be concerned because there isn't that much time to get races under her belt or put things right in training now.

What we might see now if a few of the athletes in form taking it easy for a few weeks. Training tends to work in cycles and you have to be careful not to push too hard too soon.

It's the travelling as much as the races that can tire you. Danny Caines had to endure a 12-hour trip to Greece recently and that's the reason why he hasn't been quite as sharp as he would have liked.