Sonia still a Rebel with a cause

ALL ON its own, a list of Sonia O’Sullivan’s achievements would fill this article.

So we’ll settle for an abbreviated summary: broke every Irish record from 800m to half-marathon!; gold medals won in every international championship you care to name, including a cross-country double on the long and short course in the world championships of 1998; denied Olympic gold by a tummy bug in 1996, denied on other occasions by people whose activities subsequently came under suspicion. But still won silver in 2000, in her third Olympics and was the fastest woman in the world year after year over a variety of distances. She set numerous world records, and still holds the record for the 2,000m (8:21.64, set in July 1994).

And yet just a couple of weeks ago, in the CIT track in Cork, there she was, with a group of the most casual runners you could ever come across, talking, laughing, joking, cajoling, just one of the gang as she put them through their paces.