Tyson Gay picked up a third gold medal and Team USA continued to dominate in sprinting events by winning the 4x100 metres relay at the World Championships in Osaka tonight.

David Gillick was left puffing and blowing at the end of his World Championships 400 metres semi-final in Osaka – and in sixth place after wilting in the home straight.

DERVAL O’ROURKE finished last of the seven competitors in her Golden League 100m hurdles race at the Bislett Games in Oslo last night, in a time of 13.19 secs.

Meseret Defar broke the world 3,000 metres road running record in today's Newcastle/Gateshead meeting with a time of eight minutes 46.9 seconds.

ASAFA POWELL, Jeremy Wariner and Sanya Richards made it six Golden League wins out of six in Berlin yesterday to earn a cash bonus of $250,000 each.

ALISTAIR CRAGG took another big step towards European gold this summer with a personal best in a historic 5,000 metres in New York.

Ireland's Alistair Cragg continued his comeback from a back injury by finishing third in a high class 2-mile run at the Boston Indoor Games overnight.

Tirunesh Dibaba became the first athlete to achieve the 5000 and 10000 metres double when she defended her title over the shorter distance at the World Championship in Helsinki.

IRELAND’S interest in the world championships in Helsinki ended last night with the elimination of Maria McCambridge (5,000m) and Derval O’Rourke (100m hurdles).

SONIA O’SULLIVAN brought down the curtain on her Olympic odyssey in the heat of Athens last night when she was lapped by seven runners.

It was far from the ending to her fifth Olympic final that Sonia O'Sullivan had dreamt of, but, having been burned off the pace after 2-and-a-half laps of tonight's 5000m final, the Cobh athlete was still thankful for the experience.

SONIA O’SULLIVAN will be back in old, familiar surroundings when she lines up for the final of the women’s 5,000m at the Olympic Stadium in Athens tonight.

SONIA O’SULLIVAN is safely through to Monday night’s final of the women’s 5,000m with a chance of adding another medal to the silver she won in Sydney four years ago.

Sonia O'Sullivan has qualified for the final of the 5000m in Athens tonight, finishing as a fastest runner-up.

FROM the crumbs of a rather bare table came medals of joy for the Irish at the concluding session of the IAAF World Indoor Athletics Championships in Budapest yesterday when the 4x400 metres relay team took bronze after a drama which would have been difficult to script.

A course record is expected to fall to world-beater Paula Radcliffe when she heads the British challenge for honours in tomorrow’s Chiba International Ekiden Relay in Japan.

Ireland's former 5000m world champion Sonia O'Sullivan comfortably qualified for Saturday's final in a season's best time of 14 minutes 55.50secs.

SONIA O’SULLIVAN made a somewhat disappointing track return in Lausanne last night when she finished a remote ninth behind runaway winner, Yelena Zadorozhnaya of Russia, in 8:54.16, her slowest competitive 3,000m in 12 years.

SONIA O’SULLIVAN is unlikely to compete in the world indoor championships in Birmingham next month.