Sonia all out to lead Irish in Brussels
That was the clear message from the Olympic silver medallist after leading the Irish women to silver medals at the European cross-country championships in Edinburgh on Sunday.
Disappointment gave way to elation midway through the post-race interviews when after it appeared Ireland would have to settle for fourth place flustered officials dashed in to round up the members of the team to take them to the podium for the medal presentation.
“I felt that there was more in me than fourth but I definitely ran as well as I could on the day,” she said. “Again that gap opened and something happened. It has happened before a few times and it is something I will just have to work on.
“But the disappointment of not getting team medals would have been hard to take. That’s the reason I came back from Australia. That’s the reason Catherina (McKiernan) turned up. It was all for the team and not to get medals would have been an absolute disaster.”
She revealed that the decision whether or not to come back to the UK for the European championships was in the balance until she went to watch Ireland play France in the Rugby World Cup and got goose bumps on the back of her neck when the Irish anthem was played.
“I wanted to be part of that. I wanted to stand on the podium and have the national anthem played and cross-country running is the only event where you can compete as a team in what is basically an individual sport,” she said.
“Now I think we have laid the foundations for the world cross-country championships in Brussels or at future European championships. I want to be part of that and I would hope that the performance of the team in Edinburgh will inspire the younger athletes to join us.”
She admitted she is prepared to wait until 2006 if that’s how long it takes - that year’s European track and field championships will also be a target.
That is also the year of the next Commonwealth Games in Australia and, while she has been linked with a possible move to the Australian team for that, she insisted that there was no question of her cutting her links with Ireland.
“I live in Australia and I train there but in my heart I love Ireland and my heart is always in Ireland. I will compete for Ireland in the world cross-country championships and the Olympic Games and for as long as I can.
“And if I was to compete for Australia in the Commonwealth Games it would be because I was invited to do so because I lived there and my friends and training partners wanted me to do it,” she explained.
Her build-up to the Olympic Games in Athens has already started and it will take on another dimension when she returns to the familiar surroundings of Falls Creek for altitude training in January.
After that she will race in Australia before coming back for the world cross-country championships and then, in April, she will go to the US again following an old and familiar route which has worked in the past.
She will launch her track season proper in the US in May where she will have at least one, and maybe two races before returning to her London base and the European circuit which leads right into the Olympics.
Her silver team medal on Sunday was her sixth European medal three golds and now three silvers to add to her Olympic silver, world championship 5,000m gold, two world cross-country golds from the sensational back-to-back double in Marrakech in 1998 and two bronze team medals.
The Irish team manager, Patsy McGonagle, was elated yesterday with the news that she had committed herself to the world cross-country championships in Brussels.
“Winning the medals was the fillip we needed right now but the decision by Sonia O’Sullivan to compete in Brussels gives us something extra to work on,” he said.
“Now we will be looking at what is available to us and who will be available to us team-wise. Anne Keenan Buckley announced her retirement on Sunday but now we will have to try and persuade her to remain on until after Brussels at least.
“We have won bronze medals on two occasions in the past and it is very important that we keep this momentum going. I would hope that there are others out there who will want to make it on to this team.
“The fact that we have Catherina McKiernan back is a huge boost and she played the major role in winning silver medals, even though she has just come off a bout of flu.”
McGonagle was also full of praise for young Mark Christie a former Irish Examiner national junior sports star from Mullingar who finished sixth in the junior men’s race to lay the foundations for a good junior team of the future.
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