(UKPA) – 1 hour ago

Newly crowned European champion Hayley Yelling faces a tough task if she is to beat Tirunesh Dibaba at the Bupa Great Edinburgh International Cross Country in the New Year.

Yelling stunned her rivals with her runaway success at the recent European Championships in Dublin where she won by almost 50 metres, just 12 months after coming out of retirement.

Now she plan to line up against Ethiopian Dibaba, arguably the world's current greatest women's distance runner and winner of three world cross country titles, the last of which was won at the 2008 championships in Edinburgh's Holyrood Park.

Dibaba, Olympic 5,000 metres and 10,000m champion, will start as favourite on her return to the venue on January 9 to add to the victory she achieved at the inaugural race in 2005.

Yelling-Higham insists it is not her intention to again pursue a full-time running career quickly pointing out that the World Championships next March do not figure in her plans.