O'Sullivan crowned champion once again

An evening to set alongside some of the great occasions in Irish sport, saw Sonia O'Sullivan crowned champion of Europe for the second time in her eventful career in the Nepstadion in Budapest.

Unlike her 3,000 metres success in Helsinki four years ago, when her confidence was at flood tide and even the strongest of opposition shrivelled in her presence, this win over 10,000 metres was hewn from character.

Never before had she competed over this distance and seldom had she taken so much mental baggage into a final after losing all but two of her 10 track races this summer.

Yet, in little more than half an hour, she destroyed the myth of a fine athlete in decline when she produced a finishing run of breathtaking proportions to put precious metres between herself and her pursuers.

Strewn out behind her, like debris after a storm, was the Olympic and world champion Fernanda Ribeiro of Portugal and a host of big-name athletes who, just minutes earlier, had flirted with the prospect of championship fulfilment.

In the end, however, it became a one woman show with O'Sullivan finishing in 31 minutes 29.33 seconds, more than three seconds ahead of Ribeiro with Romania's Lidia Simon in third place. Paula Radcliffe of Britain, who had run with characteristic bravery throughout, was fifth in 31:36.51.

Once across the line, O'Sullivan's reaction caught the significance of the occasion. Punching the air repeatedly, she was visibly ecstatic. In a career which had produced some glorious highs as well as some traumatic lows, this, one sensed, was one of the sweetest moments of all.

Victory had been a long time in the making and now she was going to enjoy it. It was in the steamy heat of Marrakech, after her double success in the World Cross Country Championship in March, that the goal of European championship success over 10,000 metres was first identified.

Despite some rocky patches along the way, the journey was undertaken with the type of conviction which marked those earlier, sunny days when the world was her stage.

There will be those who say that the race was run to suit her. But that ought not detract from an exemplary exercise in self belief at a time when many sensed that the piston-like drive had left her legs and even the most straight-forward of assignments appeared fringed with hazard.

It was, in many respects, a curious race, not least in the fact that the early pace was little more than a doddle. As the biggest "kicker" in the field it suited O'Sullivan and one can only assume the others doubted her stamina to see out the trip.

In that, they were grievously mistaken. In sharp contrast to many of her earlier outings this summer, when her concentration wavered alarmingly, she was fully focused, alive to everything that was happening around her and always well placed to cover the breaks.

In the event, these proved few. After the leaders required 16 minutes 08.35 seconds to reach half way, the pace quickened in the second 5,000 metres which, at 15:20.35, was some 47 seconds faster. That, primarily, was the product of some aggressive running by Radcliffe who, reading the alarm signs conveyed in O'Sullivan's long rhythmic stride, belatedly realised that the Irish woman was not about to make a premature exit on this occasion.

After just four of the 25 laps, the field split into two groups with Ribeiro, Simon, O'Sullivan, Radcliffe and Olivera Jevtic of Yugoslavia opening up a significant gap of 25 metres. It was only by dint of some uncommonly hard work that the Spaniard, Julia Vaquero, worked her way back to the leaders on lap 12 and, to her credit, she would later contribute much to the race.

At that point, O'Sullivan was alternating between third and fourth places and moving freely in the oppressive heat. When Vaquero led at seven kilometres there was just a hint of trouble in the making as O'Sullivan slipped back to fifth. We wondered aloud if history was about to repeat itself.

This time, however, the response was quick and reassuring. Without appearing to change gear she cruised back into third place and it was probably at that point that the pessimists were finally convinced that this, indeed, was a different athlete from the one who had surrendered so tamely in her last two races in Sheffield and Zurich.

Now the carriage was fluent and upright with no trace of indecision. First Radcliffe and, later, Ribeiro tested out her strength with brief surges on laps 20 and 21. In each instance, they can only have been disillusioned by the manner in which O'Sullivan answered the challenge.

Yet, Ribeiro, in the manner of a superb athlete who has proved her competitive instincts time and again, still refused to accept the defeat which was now becoming more and more inevitable.

Jutting her jaw, she dug in ever harder with 1,000 metres to go hoping that one last surge could finally take her clear and render O'Sullivan's finishing pace ineffective.

As it transpired, that proved nothing more than a forlorn hope for, having survived the worst of her ordeal without any apparent sign of distress, O'Sullivan was now travelling with all her old power and authority.

This time, there was no danger of her running out of strength and when she arrived at the bell in third place, just immediately behind Ribeiro and Radcliffe, the stage was set for the kind of finish which has so often thrilled her supporters.

Making absolutely certain that nothing or nobody would get in the way of success, she moved to the outside and from that point the rest were racing for second place. She waited until 180 metres from home before taking the lead for the first time but, when the final thrust came, it was unanswerable.

In a matter of strides she was gone from Ribeiro, exuberant and joyously alone as she sprinted down the finishing straight. Success had been achieved in the most authoritative manner imaginable and the watching world knew that, after long months of torment, O'Sullivan was, at last, finally vindicated.