Christine can halt Sanya jackpot bid

Ohuruogu was crowned world champion over 400metres in Osaka last week, a title Richards would perhaps have been favourite for.

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But in June, returning from an injury break, she failed to win selection for the U.S. team in the 400m. In her absence, Ohuruogu triumphed only 24 days after the Londoner's one-year doping ban ended.

Williams would receive a $1m bonus if she went unbeaten through the year's six Golden League meetings. Ohuruogu has three chances to deprive her of that: tonight in the Weltklasse meeting in Zurich, next Friday in Brussels and two days later in Berlin.

Richards shared the bonus last year with sprinter Asafa Powell and she is one of only three who can win it this year. The others are sprint hurdler Michelle Perry and pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva.

Ohuruogu is a novice beside Richards, a world champion before she has run in a Golden League meeting and has not even raced in a Grand Prix meeting outside her own country.

She will compete in the World Athletics Finals in Stuttgart after Berlin, and her race agent, Ricky Simms, confirmed yesterday that negotiations have started to end her season with a big pay-day in Shanghai at the end of this month.

Ohuruogu's advisers do not see it as a ride on a gravy train set rolling by her victory in Osaka, but a chance to experience the demanding schedule of competing and travelling, something Richards takes for granted.

Her coach, Lloyd Cowan, said: "This is her schooling, how to handle the travel, the hotels, the media work, the racing. She's never done it before. The others have. It is learning the business we're in.

"Should we protect her, stop her from being beaten? No, she has to learn. This is her job. You don't turn up to work when you want to — you turn up to earn a living."

Ohuruogu does not want any special treatment and says she wants to test herself against the best.

"I could easily have said 'I am jet lagged, I am not going to run' but I'm not like that. I like to be challenged and pushed and given a job to do."

Surprisingly, far from being at her peak in Osaka, she calls the final "an awful race". She said: "My race plan wasn't brilliant. I hussled my way through. It's got to be better."

She almost lost the race between 200m and 300m, and Cowan said: "Chris has never been in the big league before and at this level the girls don't play at it.

"She ran eight tenths of a second slower over the first 300m in Osaka than Novlene Williams who was third. If that had been Sanya, Chris wouldn't have come back to win." Williams will be in the field tonight, no doubt seeking revenge, but Ohuruogu warned: "I don't think I've yet run as fast as I can this year."