Team Ireland Send Out SOS at Paris World Championships

PARIS - 27th August 2003, special to Irish Runner.com by Dave Mervyn

When in trouble, send out your big gun. Well Team Ireland's big gun is thirty-three years of age and in the past four has given birth to two children, but boy can Sonia O'Sullivan surprise us when she wants to.

A season's best of 14:55.50 in only the second ever 5000m World heat to clock the winner under fifteen minutes. 15:01.48 ended up being the required time for the fourteen qualifiers so it was just as well O'Sullivan chose to run her fastest 5000m in three years in Saint Denis.

The pressure was off the 1995 World champion last evening in Paris. Surely with seven athletes quicker than her over the year, in the second heat she would struggle. The hacks were planning bios of the Cobh athlete for the morning dailies - how would this disappointment rank in the calendar of championship woe for Sonia, where to next? Athens? Forget it!

But no, O'Sullivan is not an eleven-time majors winner for nothing. What she make lack in pace this much-curtailed season, she's made up for with tactical nous and race picking and planning of the highest kind. Undoubtedly this performance was fermented at Zurich's Weltklasse meet two weeks' ago, when she comfortably stuck behind Gabriela Szabo for a season's best of 8:37.55 over 3000m. Crucially she didn't attempt to 'run' a race against Szabo in the real sense of the word and the Romanian paid dearly tonight as others did in underestimating Ireland's finest.

Reflecting on a memorable night, O'Sullivan said, 'That race was good for me, it had a bit of everything.'

'I was a bit nervous before the race, but now I feel good.'

She took on pole position for the first half of the race before settling back into the pack, and made her charge for the line 200 metres from home.

Sonia O'Sullivan
photo by Randy Miyazaki
trackandfieldphoto.com

Sonia O'Sullivan

'I am glad to have got it out of the way and now I have to go away and think about the final because I imagine it will be a faster race than I have ever run before,' she continued. 'I am going to have to go out there and run as hard as I can. I need to be right in there for the moment it becomes a race because that is my strength. It is never easy to run faster than you ever have before, but I've been trying to do that for a few years now and it will be a big challenge, but I'll be going after it.'

In the past we may have questioned which O'Sullivan would turn up on a big track night, with erratic performances spludged across her CV from Atlanta, Athens and Sydney, but four final words perhaps served up a chilling reminder to her opponents and a pointer to the feeling within her camp.

'I'll be there Saturday.'

Expect the unexpected.

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The first heat was won by Kenyan Edith Masai in 14:45.35 with Ethiopia's Turinesh Dibata in second (14:45.96) and China's Yingjie Sun, Spain's Martha Dominguez (PBing by ten seconds with 14:48.33) and Zahra Ouaziz making up the first five qualifiers. Defending champion Olga Yegorova was back in tenth position with a disappointing 15:12.41.All the Russian stocks of EPO must have been flown to Stamford Bridge over the summer?

RESULT:
Heat 2: 1 Elvan Abeylegesse (Tur) 14:54.95, 2 Sonia O'Sullivan (Irl) 14:55.50, 3 Berhane Adere (Eth) 14:56.01, 4 Isabella Ochichi (Ken) 14:56.63, 5 Yelena Zadorozhnaya (Rus) 14:56.70, 6 Gabriela Szabo (Rom) 14:56.70, 7 Zhor El Kamch (Mar) 15:00.61, 8 Courtney Babcock (Can) 15:01.48, 9 Irina Mikitenko (Ger) 15:06.97, 10 Restituta Joseph (Tan) 15:10.54, 11 Lauren Fleshman (Usa) 15:12.71, 12 Huina Xing (Chn) 15:13.50, 13 Hrisostomia Iakavou (Gre) 15:44.90, 14 Susanne Pumper (Aut) 15:53.52, 15 Docus Inzikuru (Uga) 16:00.99, 16 Lilian Claber Argereta (Hon) 20:17.90, Anesie Kwizera (Bdi) DNS


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