Athletics: Sonia turns tutor for Ciara

It was both a look back and a glance forward — an appreciation of a past great and the heralding of her successor. And through all of yesterday’s National Athletics Awards in Santry, there was an excited sense of expectancy with an Olympic year starting to loom on the horizon.

Towards the end, two women remained on stage, shooting the breeze about all things athletics. For Ciara Mageean, the 2019 Athlete of the Year, it was a chance to again meet one of her childhood heroes. For Sonia O’Sullivan, who entered the Athletics Ireland Hall of Fame, it was a chance to pass on some encouragement to the woman who’s following the trail she so brightly blazed.