O’Sullivan getting back down to earth at Mardyke
Yesterday, the Olympic silver medallist was willing to put the performance behind her and put it down to the fact that she had only arrived back down to sea level the day before, having spent a month training at altitude in the Alpine resort of St Moritz.
“After training at altitude is can be very unpredictable and you just don’t know what to expect,” O’Sullivan said. “You feel fine but you just can’t tell what kind of form you are in until you run. It is more like a blood thing so it is not something that is obvious or that you can see.
“As a result you don’t know immediately what kind of an effect it is going to have on you. You can run well immediately but then it could take a number of days or maybe even a couple of weeks before you really get back to normal. You need to get yourself back to normal when you arrive back at sea level after living and training at altitude.
But Saturday’s race is very important for me now just to see where I am at. I was just not running well on Tuesday night and hopefully the return from altitude is the reason for that. We will see.”
City Sports chairman Dick Hodgins predicted a fast time on the newly-laid Mardyke track. “Last year Sonia came to Cork after running 8:51 in Sheffield and she ran 8:38 here. No matter what you do in your first race of the season you are always going to be a bit rusty,” he said. “We have put a pretty strong field together for the 1500m. Renee Kalmer, who finished ahead of Sonia on Tuesday night will be there. We have the Belgian champion and she is very good. And during the week we had an application from the Greek federation for a place for Nadia Efentaki who is looking for the qualifying standard for the worlds.”
The Dutch federation has replaced their original entry with Adrienne Herzog while Czech Andrea Soldisova is also chasing a qualifying standard.
Freda Davoren, who missed this event and all of last season through injury, will have Paris on her mind as well when she lines up for what she hopes will be a fast race as she is close to the qualifying standard.
Alain Pompie from Guyana won the 400m at the Mardyke last year and went on to win the Commonwealth Games title and she was in touch with the organisers this week looking for a place tomorrow in the hope she would be lining up alongside former world leader Katharine Merry.
“The 400m field was full but we were able to accommodate her in the 200m,” Hodgins said.
The women’s 400m, like the men’s equivalent, promises to be an exciting affair with Katharine Merry making a welcome return to The Mardyke, joined by Italian champion Daniela Perpoli, Julienne Clay from the USA, Barbara Petran from Hungary, two other English athletes and Ireland’s senior and junior record holders, Karen Shinkins and Joanne Cuddihy.
The newly-crowned American long jump champion has been added to the entries for that event. Grace Upshaw, who jumped 6.99 metres in Glasgow last weekend, is hoping for seven metres in Cork where she was second two years ago. She will be joined by last year’s US champion Brianna Glenn and with a good Jamaican in the field as well this should be another exciting competition.
Good news for racewalking fans is that for the first time a walk has been added to the programme and double world record holder Gillian O’Sullivan, who currently leads the Grand Prix series, will be in action.
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