Sonia to give it her best for final

SONIA O’SULLIVAN has drawn the easier of tonight’s two 5,000m Olympic semi-finals, but the Sydney silver medallist must run her best race of the year to get through to Monday night’s final.

How fast she is going to have to run ­ the first five in each of the two semi-finals will go through along with the five fastest losers ­ could depend on how new world champion, Elvan Abeylegesse of Turkey, approaches the race.

The former Ethiopian set an astonishing new world mark of 14:24.68 for 5,000m in Bergen in June when the former world champion Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia was over six seconds behind her.