O’Sullivan takes Cork in her stride

SONIA O’SULLIVAN took another step along the now familiar path to major championship and Olympic engagements when she paraded her talents once again at the Mardyke on Saturday, and as they gave her the traditional send-off, she responded with an emphatic if not spectacular 5,000m victory in 15:15.95.

While the winning time may have been modest it came off a slow early pace and the true merit of the performance can be measured in a 65.7 sec final lap at the end of four merciless laps that literally destroyed the field.

Alena Samokhvalova of Russia crossed the line some 18 seconds behind the Olympic silver medallist while Maria McCambridge, who shared in the early pace, was a further 17 seconds behind - and they all lost the time over those last four laps.

“I had contemplated a 200m sprint but the Russian girl was there and I had never seen her before. I really did not know what to expect from her,” she said. “I was sitting there trying not to pass her and then, with four laps to go, I decided to go and see what happened.”

It worked out perfectly as she stamped her authority on the race with every stride and she was particularly pleased with the fact that she could still sprint off the relentless pace that she had set over the concluding stages.

Between now and August 20 she will be brushing up on her speed. She has a training camp planned in Spain and will run a 3,000m race in Madrid during it. She will then put the finishing touches her Olympic preparations once again in old familiar surroundings when she lines up for the 3,000m at the Weltklasse in Zurich on August 6 where she ran 8:37.55 last year.

Freda Davoren turned in what was probably the best performance of her career to win a very competitive women’s 1,500m in 4:13.43, edging out Rene Kalmer of South Africa by five-hundredths of a second with Andrea Suldesova of the Czech Republic trying to split them in the most exciting finish of the day.

It was a powerful performance by the UCC graduate and she maintained an interesting sequence in that this particular event has been won by an Irish athlete for the past five years.

She said: “there has been so much pressure on people with the qualifying deadline being today that people have not been running that well. Hopefully, the OCI might review that and give people the opportunity over the next few weeks. I think everybody is going to keep trying because it is only the third of July and it is still early season.” Derval O’Rourke posted her Olympic qualifying standard almost a year ago but she was looking for a boost when she returned to her home track to contest a competitive 100m hurdles. Victory went to Maiia Paula Machado from Brazil in a new career best time of 12.96, winning from Nadine Faustin from Haiti, 13.08.

The Cork girl had to settle for fifth place in 13.26 but she was ahead of the former world junior champion, Julie Pratt of Great Britain, but she was happy with the performance.

“I will run sub-13 seconds before the Olympics,” she promised. “Today I was more explosive in the early part of the race and I felt very strong at the finish. Another Cork athlete, Ailís McSweeney (UCC), ran a sparkling 100m, finishing third in 11.67 ahead of Ciara Sheehy. The race was won by Vikda Anim (Ghana) in 11.31 from Janette Kwakye (GB), 11.44.