O’Sullivan takes slow start to season in her stride

SONIA O’SULLIVAN admitted yesterday she is taking longer than anticipated to get back on track ahead of the world championships in Paris next month.

However, she insisted in Dublin yesterday - where she was launching the BUPA Great Ireland run which switches from Loughrea to the Phoenix Park this year - that panic was the furthest thing from her mind as the countdown to the championships begin.

The former world champion said she is taking some time to get back on track after four weeks of training at altitude in the Alpine resort of St Moritz. She launched her season with a disappointing 3,000m run in Lausanne the day after she returned to sea level, celebrated her homecoming with a 1,500m victory at the BUPA Cork City Sports, but was below her best form in Gateshead last weekend.

“It was an improvement on Lausanne so I’m moving in the right direction,” she said yesterday. “OK, it’s not as fast as I would want it to be but I suppose you can’t always have things the way you want them.”

The athletics grapevine suggests she is turning in some remarkable training sessions in London and it would appear that it is just a matter of converting this form into racing.

“It’s nothing out of this world. It’s just basic stuff. I’m just getting the work done,” she said. “I just have to move forward now and run as well in the races as I have been running in training.

“I think I will just have to be a bit patient and keep doing what I’m doing and eventually I’ll turn that corner. It’s true I have been training really well so it is a bit surprising that I haven’t been racing as well.

“But maybe it’s a combination of trying to do training and racing at the same time and not really getting that much opportunity to rest. But a time will come when I’ll be able to rest and have all the training behind me so hopefully I’ll start running fast races.”

She said: “I have a 1,500m race in Madrid on Saturday with a break then until the Grand Prix in London the second Friday in August. I don’t plan to race in between so I will be getting stuff done.”

O’Sullivan admitted a fast 1,500m in Madrid this weekend would give her an option going into the world championships in Paris where, at the moment, the 5,000m is her only target.

“I have all of six weeks between now and the world championships and that’s a lot of time for me to build on what I have right now. I should probably have a decent foundation so I can just get ready.”

The main object of her visit to Dublin yesterday was for a glamorous launch of the Great BUPA Ireland run in the Phoenix Park on October 5 and she sat alongside Ronan Keating, a former under-age sprints champion, at the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham. The nominated charities are the Marie Keating Fund and Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children.

Meanwhile, the Irish Universities Team for the world student games in Korea, was unveiled at Trinity College yesterday before the Korean Ambassador to Ireland, Mr Yang Lee. The delegation of 76 participants and 22 officials will be headed by Michael Whelan, assisted by Kieran Dowd.

A clash with the world championships in Paris has deprived the current team of some notable names and potential medallists. Derval O’Rourke (100m hurdles), currently in Poland for the European U23 championships, should post the qualifying standard for the worlds which would mean she would have to travel to Paris or forfeit next year’s Olympic Games.

David McCarthy, also in Poland, is a member of the 4x400m squad for the world championships. Track and Field manager Patsy McGonagle expects to add four new names to the team today - northern sprinter Anna Boyle, national hammer record holder Eileen O’Keeffe, Athenry sprinter Paul Hession and 400m hurdler Michelle Conway from West Dublin.

Cork will provide no fewer than seven members of the men’s football squad: Brendan O’Connell, Alan Kelly, Shane Hennessy, Michael Mulconry, Ken Bruton and Paul Rose (all UCC) and Cillian Lordan from CIT.