KELLY Sotherton will be going all out to crack the Olympic long jump qualifying distance at Crystal Palace tonight - irrespective of whether she can double up in Athens.

The 27-year-old Isle of Wight all-rounder is already guaranteed an Olympic place in the heptathlon, in which she currently ranks third in the world, but she is a tantalising two centimetres short of the A long jump standard, having leaped 6.68 centimetres in Poland last month.

Tonight she faces a classy international field in the Norwich Union London Grand Prix, including Jamaica's world leader Elva Goulbourne, British number one Jade Johnson and Olympic heptathlon champion Denise Lewis, Sotherton's friend and training partner in her adopted home city of Birmingham.

Johnson is Britain's only women's long jumper currently selected for Athens and Sotherton is unsure what would happen were she to achieve the 6.70 target just five days before she jets off to the Olympic holding camp in Cyprus.

She said: "It's a perfect event to double up in because there's a four-day gap between that and the heptathlon (August 20/21). It would be nice if the selectors could reconsider and select me for the long jump, but I'm not relying on it. If I'm picked, I'm picked and if I'm not, I'm not. The heptathlon is the most important thing."

Athens-bound 4x400m relay man Robert Tobin has not been invited to the Crystal Palace meet and will knuckle down to training this weekend under the watchful eye of his coach, Todd Bennett.

The cold and windy weather scuppered Tobin's hopes of lowering his 46.17sec personal best at the Norwich Union International in Birmingham last week, where he finished a slightly disappointing seventh in 46.88.

The Southampton University student reflected: "The conditions were so bad that everyone was about a second down on what they're capable of. I'd like to get another run in before flying out on August 13 because I need to get my time down."

Middle distance pair Angus Maclean and James Parker have boosted Team Solent promotion hopes from the British Athletics League Division 4. Both are available for tomorrow's cliffhanging final match at Abingdon, which sees third-place Solent needing to beat Crawley by two places and 37 points to go up.

Quality high jumper Dan Turner is also back available, while Chris Bull should add strength to the long and triple jumps. In the throws, Nick Illiffe returns in the discus and English Schools' champion Kieren Kelly will make his British League debut partnering Gary Sollitt in the shot.