I went too early, says disappointed Sonia

SONIA O’SULLIVAN took a long run in the English Garden in Munich yesterday with two silver medals from the European championships to celebrate and plenty to reflect on after Saturday’s 5,000m final in which she saw victory snatched from her

All the excitement of what was an uneventful race was packed into that finishing straight duel which the defending champion appeared to have won once she extracted herself from a difficult situation going into the final 200m and then took the lead. But Sonia knew she had made a mistake. “I knew I went too early, so immediately I had this doubt in my mind,” she recalled. “But I think if I had not thought about I might have got it. But I thought: ‘Oh No!’ I could not see what was going on behind me. I knew with about 70 metres to go my legs were gone and there was just nothing left.”

The winning time - 15:14.76 for the winner against 15:14.85 for the runner up - speaks volumes for the race. The laps varied from just over 72 seconds to one of 79.21 secs with the first kilometre at 3:10.52, the second at 6:08.67 and 3k at 9:14.82. In the 10,000m final on Tuesday night, they went through the opening kilometre in 2:59.16 and reached 3,000m in 8:56.54.