Bulli's champion teenager runner Ryan Gregson will compete in the 1500m at the star-studded Sydney Track Classic at Sydney Olympic Park tomorrow.Gregson, 18, who this month won the prestigious 2008 Tobin Family Award at the Illawarra Academy of Sport annual presentation dinner, and is the cousin of Australian Olympic hockey star Casey Eastham, sees the 1500m as his long term preferred distance in an athletics career brimming with enormous potential."It's going to be huge. It's not only an event in Sydney but the athletes that are there means it's worthy of a big European meet. It is seriously world class and I'm glad to even get a start," Gregson said yesterday."In the 1500m we've got a guy who is mainly an 800m runner, Yusuf Kamel, a former Kenyan who's running for Bahrain now. He's run 3:31 (3min31sec) over 1500m."Last year the fastest in the world was 3:31 and he was one of them."He probably won't be in 100 per cent form because he'll be concentrating on the world championships in August. I'm pretty sure there will be a pacemaker. The pace will be pretty quick."It's not like it's going to be slow at the start and a big kick finish. It'll be more just solid, even pace and pretty quick."The field is one of the strongest ever assembled for the 1500m in Australia."The high quality field in the 1500m to be run at 8.47pm, will also include North Wollongong's Lachlan Chisholm, Victorians Jeff Risely, Collis Birmingham and Craig Huffer, Ireland's David Campbell, Kenyans Bernard Kiplogat and Gideon Gathamba, Great Britain's Mike Skinner and Jeremy Roff of Randwick Botany Harriers.As the only junior in the field, Gregson will be trying to break Mike Hillard's 32 year Australian junior record of 3:39.67 set in 1977."It's been there for a very long time so it would be a pretty good record to get," Gregson said.Whilst this will be Gregson's second race after recovering from a stress fracture to his fibula bone in his lower right leg last November, he is always solid and consistent so it's possible that he could finish high in the field.However, Gregson is realistic given he is up against plenty of experienced campaigners.Among the stars who will be shining at the Sydney Classic will be Melbourne's Beijing Olympic pole vault gold medallist Steve Hooker, Russian silver medallist Yevgeniy Lukyanenko and 2004 Olympic champion Tim Mack of the United States, New Zealand's world and Olympic shot put champion Valerie Vili and former world 100m champion Asafa Powell who will compete in the 400m.Powell will face formidable competition in the 400m from the likes of American Xavier "X-Man" Carter, Commonwealth Games champion John Steffensen, Australia's Olympic semi-finalists Joel Milburn and Sean Wroe, rising star Kurt Mulcahy, Jamaica's Sanjay Ayre and Japan's Yoshihiro Horigome.Gregson is tipping Milburn to win the 400m which will be run at 8.11pm, 36 minutes before the 1500m event.Powell will also team with three members of the Jamaican 4x100m relay team that set a new world record in their gold-medal winning run in Beijing.Australia's Olympic 100m hurdles silver medallist Sally McLellan, 50m walk silver medallist and 20m walk bronze medallist Jared Tallent will be competing in Sydney as will reigning Olympic discus champion Stephanie Brown-Trafton, of the US, against Australia's Dani Samuels who finished ninth at Beijing.Gregson will turn his attention to the longer distance when he races in the 5000m at the Melbourne IAAF World Athletics Tour next Thursday."I think it's actually going to be even bigger in Melbourne," Gregson said."Asafa Powell will do the 100m in Melbourne and he said he's going to crack 10 seconds so that will be the first time it will be ever done on Australian soil. That'll be pretty huge."And I'll do the 5k (5000m) down there, the Australian championship 5k."The way my training is going - because my main focus this season is the world cross country - it's a world event and I've got to target that the most. It's 8k (8000m) so I've been training more for the 8k. The race next week will be 5k so that will probably suit me more at the moment than the 1500m."I think I might be a pretty good chance to get up for a national medal hopefully."On March 13 Gregson will have a 3000m race in Christchurch, New Zealand.Early this month he made a successful return to running in Canberra after a stress fracture sidelined him last November.Gregson won the under 20 8km event at the World Cross Country Trials in the ACT at Stromlo Forest Park, a course designed by Robert De Castella, in a personal best time of 23.57.He is now an automatic selection to compete in the World Junior Cross Country Championships in Amman, Jordan, on March 28. In early April he will race the 1500m and 5000m at the Australian Under 20 Championships.