O’Sullivan looks for answers
She sat across from the new Italian sensation, Elisa Rigaudo, at a press conference that lasted for an hour and a half and one could not help wondering what was going through her mind during that time.
Last year O’Sullivan herself became something of a sensation on the world stage by winning the inaugural IAAF Grand Prix of Race Walking and clinching it in the best possible fashion with a silver medal at the world championships in Paris.
But she opened that campaign with a spectacular victory in the very first race in Tijuana and when she went back there in March hoping for a repeat she had to be content with fourth place behind Rigaudo.
The 23 year old Italian hung on defiantly as O’Sullivan set a blistering early pace (44:46 for the first 10k) and when the world silver medallist became detached she went on to dispose of Spain’s Olympic bronze medallist, Maria Vasco, and Portugal’s Susana Feitor and win in 1:28:50 which was more than a minute faster than her previous best and the fastest time ever posted on Mexican soil.
After that everyone went scurrying off to train more and a number including Ireland’s Gillian O’Sullivan and, indeed, Rigaudo herself, went to altitude in Albuquerque.
Since then they have gone their separate ways. O’Sullivan returned to Ireland to continue her training while Rigaudo went on to Rio Major where she won the second of the Grand Prix races.
Gillian O’Sullivan’s decision to give that race a miss could prove significant tomorrow when she could be fresher than anyone going to the line.
“It was a tough race in Tijuana and I think that was reflected in the performances in Rio Major,” her coach Michael Lane who, himself, raced in the world cup. “The times there were way down on Mexico.”
Any disappointment Gillian O’Sullivan had with her fourth place in Tijuana was eased by the fact that she walked faster than the previous year there.
“I walked marginally faster and the way I look at it the time would have won last year,” she said. “It just wasn’t good enough this year.
“Hopefully I can progress from that and if I do the same as last year I won’t be complaining. But it was my first race and I feel you always need a race or two to be aggressive and get you going again.”
She wants to put her world cup record straight here. She was 72nd in Mezidon-Canon in France in 1999 when a freak heatwave sent temperatures soaring sky high and she did not finish in Turin in 2002 when the event came too close to the European championships in which she had finished fourth.
“Obviously I want to improve on that,” she said.
“After Tijuana we went to Arizona where we stayed with John Kelly and got in some good training and after this I will have a couple of races in June and that will get us going before I get back training again and then Athens will be just around the corner.”
Triple Olympic champion Robert Korzeniowski will make a final bit for the elusive world cup medal that has eluded him in the men’s 20km race tomorrow.
The legendary Pole, who won the 50k race at the Atlanta Olympics retained the title in Sydney where he was a shock winner of the 20k title, trained and raced in Ireland with Robert Heffernan and Jamie Costin early in the year.
And here he has sidestepped his primary event, the 50k, for another 20k struggle with the 1996 Olympic 20km champion, Jefferson Perez from Ecuador.
Perez retired after finishing fourth in Sydney but came back to claim world cup and world championship titles, beat the Pole in a memorable race in Tijuana and is currently building up to Athens.
Robert Heffernan, back after a frustrating year that saw him miss the world championships through injury, set his national title at 1:20:25 over this course two years ago and will lead the Irish challenge in the men’s race.
He will be joined by 50km specialist, Jamie Costin (West Waterford), Colin Griffin (Ballinamore) and David Kidd from Carlow.
There will be two Irish athletes in action today. Jeff Cassin, who represented Canada twice at this level before declaring from Ireland goes in the 50km race while Catriona McMahon (St, Mary’s, Limerick) is another who has had injury problems but goes in today’s junior 10 km walk.
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