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.

ON Saturday night, Sonia O’Sullivan watched Berhane Adere win the 10,000m title with her now familiar devastating sprint that demolished the gold medal aspirations of her Ethiopian team-mate Werknesh Kindane and Yingie Sun of China, who were the only two athletes remaining in the contest for the medals at the end of a sensational race.

SONIA O’SULLIVAN will be looking to tomorrow’s 1500 metres at the BUPA Ireland Cork City Sports to measure her form following Tuesday night’s disappointing 3000m run in Lausanne, where she finished a remote ninth to runaway Russian Yelena Zadorozhnaya.

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 will face no fewer than 10 Africans when she launches her track season at the IAAF Super Grand Prix meeting in Lausanne this evening and one of the 20 strong field, Renee Kalmer from Germany, will follow her home for the BUPA Ireland Cork City Sports on Saturday afternoon.

ROBERT HEFFERNAN will miss the 20th IAAF World Cup for racewalking in Turin in two weeks time on account of injury. The Togher athlete is nursing a knee injury.

AS expected, Sonia O’Sullivan and the newly-crowned European 5,000m champion, Marta Dominguez of Spain, will renew rivalry at the Weltklasse in Zurich tonight but Gabriela Szabo has jumped ship and elected to run in the 1,500m race.