I hope to finish somewhere in the top 20

I hope to finish somewhere in the top 20." Although the IAAF cleared her switch of nationality at the end of last year, Dagne is still seeking the full British passport and citizenship she will require to be eligible to compete at next year's Olympics."I am hoping my passport will come through in time for me to run in Sydney," she said. "That is my dream." Dagne has overcome more than a fair share of nightmares - she has earned the right to dream dreams now.. PICTURE THE scene It is the night of the Oscar ceremony. Striding across the tables in floods of tears comes a familiar, thick-set figure "Luvvies.. darlings," he gushes over his statuette "This is so unexpected." It is Dean Sampson. This scenario is not - quite - impossible, because the long-serving Castleford prop is in the process of becoming an unlikely star of the silver screen. Sampson, who plays for his beloved Cas in the Challenge Cup semi-final against the London Broncos tomorrow, is the focus of an ambitious documentary film, Taming the Tiger, about the role of the club within its community. His casting is no accident. "I came here from school in 1983 and I've been here ever since.

I've had chances to go elsewhere, including Parramatta during the Super League war That wouldn't have been a bad move. But my heart has always been at Castleford and I've got some unfinished business here."That sense of something left incomplete dates back to 1992. Under the terms of the float, private shareholders cannot deal until Thursday - further evidence of the way the market discriminates against small investors.Northern Foods improved 5p to 108.5p following BT Alex.Brown support, and Tate & Lyle firmed 4.5p to 409.5p on expectations of a positive trading statement. Hazlewood Foods, ahead of an investment dinner on Monday, was little changed at 125.5p.Zeneca, as the merger with Sweden's Astra edged towards completion, improved 62p to 2,674p. The investment house met Energy executives on Wednesday and decided to lift its profit estimates from pounds 278m to pounds 295m and from pounds 249m to pounds 302m. Warburg Dillon Read also supported Energy, suggesting a share price of 750p.The failure of the rumoured profits warning from Scottish & Newcastle to appear lifted the shares 22.5p to 687.5p, and Bass firmed 21.5p to 902.5p.Conditional dealings started in property group Canary Wharf, with the shares up 6p from the 330p placing with institutions.

Dixons recovered much of its equilibrium with a 61p gain to 1,300p. Durlacher, the stockbroker plugged into the World Wide Web, jumped 75p to 1,350p, a peak; the shares were 216p a year ago.British Energy was the best-performing Footsie constituent; the shares jumped almost 12 per cent to 595.5p after positive comments from HSBC. It was another day of heavy trading, with volume topping 1.3 billion as fund managers prepared for their first-quarter reports and other investors manoeuvred for the end of the tax year.A much firmer New York display and growing hopes of further interest- rate cuts helped to overwhelm worries about the Balkan conflict.The mad scramble for anything with a touch of the Internet continued, with WH Smith rising a further 45.5p to a 703p peak as Dresdner Kleinwort Benson claimed the shares could go to 900p. If it is selling its Spanish beer unit it could be tempted to unload other brewing interests, such its Jamaican operation and, perhaps, even the famous Guinness business.One of Mr Arnault's suggestions when he unsuccessfully opposed the GrandMet/ Guinness merger that created Diageo was that the beer side should be hived off.Footsie climbed by 68.3 points to 6,085, and supporting indices also rallied. Now the talk is that it will sell to Heineken, the Dutch group ranking as Spain's second-largest brewer, for around pounds 400m.CruzCampo, which has persistently underperformed, has 20 per cent of the Spanish beer market; Heineken, through El-Aguila, accounts for 17 per cent.Diageo has been selling off peripheral spirits brands to concentrate on its major labels. Although the shares - which fell 7p to 341.5p yesterday - are on an undemanding forward multiple of 18.Informa will probably have to demonstrate that the merger is boosting its top line before they rise much further..