Sonia fails to get back on track at Lausanne

SONIA O’SULLIVAN made a somewhat disappointing track return in Lausanne last night when she finished a remote ninth behind runaway winner, Yelena Zadorozhnaya of Russia, in 8:54.16, her slowest competitive 3,000m in 12 years.

The performance, adds a new dimension to the BUPA Cork City Sports on Saturday when the olympic silver medallist and double silver medallist at last year's European championships will be bidding to get back on track in advance of the world championships in Paris.

The Cobh superstar flew into Lausanne by on Monday for last night's event after what her partner Nic Bideau described as a very good training session at altitude in St. Moritz.

But altitude training can be a funny thing an athlete can perform immediately afterwards at sea level or it can take some days for the blood to adjust and that is why Saturday's Mardyke showpiece takes on a new significance.

Last night conditions were far from ideal. Torrential rain, accompanied by flashes of lightning, flooded the track at the Stade Olympizue de la Pontaise where some events were delayed by up to 45 minutes.

But it did not dampen the enthusiasm of Zadorozhnaya who finished third behind Marta Dominguez and O'Sullivan in the final of the 5,000m at the European championships in Munich last year.

She settled in at the top of the field behind the runaway pacemakers, Margaret N'Goto and Maomi Mugo, who took the race through the first kilometre in 2:51 and when they departed after passing through 2,000m in 5:43 she was 30 metres ahead of her nearest rivals and revelling in the conditions.

Behind her Werknesh Kidane from Ethiopia and another Russian, Tatyana Tomashova, were battling it out for the second and third positions.

But O'Sullivan was already 60 to 70 metres off the pace at the tail end of a seven strong chasing group assembled from the remnants of a pretty ragged field that had disintegrated over diverse opening laps of 70.94 and 68.91 seconds.

From here on there was just going to be one winner and the second and third places appeared pretty well tied up until the penultimate lap when the young Ethiopian, Meseret Defar, stormed out of the chasing group and hunted down the two runners in front of her to take second place.

Zadoroznaya won in 8:35.50, the fastest time in the world this year, with Defar, the world junior champion at 5,000m and silver medallist at 3,000m, second in 8:43.36. Tomashova won the battle for third place in 8:44.78 from Kidane, 8:46.14.

O'Sullivan, back in 12th position, finished strongly over the concluding laps to make ninth and set the scene for what promises to be a very interesting 1,500m race before the home fans at the BUPA Ireland Cork City Sports on Saturday afternoon.

Gary Ryan had a double at last night's international athletics meeting in Genoa. The Nenagh Olympic sprinter won the B 100m in 10.54 secs and went on to win the 200m in 20.79 secs with Paul Hession fourth in 21.82. Roy Daly finished fifth in the 400m in 47.82 while Eugene Farrell was second in the B 400m in 47.89. Stephen McDonnell was third in the 400m hurdles in 62.69 while Emily Maher was fourth in he women's 100 in 12.08 secs.