Remarkable woman tames her obsession

Sonia O'Sullivan tamed the grand obsession last night. There were times in the past when we thought the obsession would conquer her. Either way, it was a battle to the death.

Remarkable woman that she is, she came through. In such an epic struggle the small things came to matter.

For instance, she bought a book last week. Just out shopping for some distraction and her eye fell on Winning Attitudes, edited by the great Herb Elliott. She brought it home for dipping into when the hours dragged by. All those positive thoughts herded between two covers. Perhaps she could borrow one.

And like a charm it came to her yesterday when her spirits started to drag along the ground and the memory of bad days cut into her like ankle chains. Nine laps to go and she felt cursed.

"There was a bit in the book about the voice inside you. The voice that says `Do you want to do this?' "

She had to answer that question. Not for the first time, but in the usual, lonely circumstance. All alone in front of thousands of people and it was Sonia and the voice. Only one answer. Do you want to give it everything in front of the world? She said yes and gave herself up to racing.

"I don't know how I got around tonight. It was one of those races where I wasn't thinking about anything. My mind was completely free, completely blank. I was just in the race after a while. It was carrying me along."

It's never as easy as it sounds. The pain of Atlanta, of Athens and other lesser places like Turin in 1997 and Villamoura this year has been public and hard to bear. It takes courage to lay yourself open, all your hopes and dreams and have people watch as they break into shards around you.

Courage had its reward yesterday. A silver medal for Sonia O'Sullivan and the chance for us to perhaps watch her run another Olympic final later this week without 10,000 volts of emotional electricity running through her. These are turning out to be a good Olympics. It had to be Szabo, of course, who finished a footfall in front of her. They've been occupying each other's heads for years, and in the past few weeks have been getting into each other's space. On a night boat from the Gold Coast of Australia out to Couran Cove, where Sonia was staying in the house of Australian running legend Ron Clarke, she looked up and saw Szabo and her husband sitting like ghosts a few seats away. Sure enough, next day at the track there they were again, grim and intense. Sonia laid down some sprints while they watched, just to whistle a bullet past their ears.

And yesterday, when the Russians, the Ethiopians and the Kenyans were at last subtracted, it was the pair of them pounding for the line. "I felt bigger, stronger, faster," said Sonia, in wonder at the resilience of the little Transylvanian.

What will linger about last night is the image of a woman conquering her fears and restoring herself to full bloom. Sonia spoke about how long she had been away from this sort of stage. She meant world championships and Olympics only, and she wasn't counting the spiritual rapes of Atlanta and Athens. She was talking about half a decade away. Suddenly she had refound herself. Listen to the things she said:

"If I was having a bet and not on myself, I'd have bet on Wami, but I don't think Wame had the courage tonight."

"I think in these races the thing you have to do is increase the braveness." "I have the bug back inside me again. As soon as I finished I knew it was back."

She said those things, those fighting things, and her face was uncreased by troubles. Here was a woman back in love with running and racing. The joy of it was spilling out of her again. There was a sense of her having closed the circle. What a story it has been. There are riproaring final chapters yet to be written, but the twist in the tail - she has provided that already. This week she did everything right. Carrying the flag in the opening ceremony gave her another feel of the awesome Olympic stadium when the seats are full and the noise is rolling like thunder. From her suburban hideout she measured the routes to Homebush Bay, worked through the details of race day in her head, attended to her circadian rhythms and spent the days pleasantly distracted by Ciara and the quotidian needs of a one-year-old. Playtime, bathtime, going-to-the-beach time. Things have changed since those junior days.

"Maybe I'll stay up all night," she said grinning. "It depends on Ciara. If she stays up all night we do."

She had spoken minutes earlier, somewhat wistfully, about the old days, about people following her to junior world and European championships back in the 1980s, about being injured and just having a good time just staying up all night. She was mad for the world of the track, never knew there could be a downside.

Where did it go, all that time? The skinny kid winning the World Student Games in Sheffield? The precocity of her fourth place at the Barcelona Olympics? The Europeans in Helsinki? The business of Stuttgart, when she was robbed in the 3,000 metres by what we now know were crooked Chinese runners, but came back to take the bravest of silvers in the 1,500? The efficient glory of Gothenburg?

She has always been wonderful to watch and to write about. There is a definition of herself which she needs to be at peace with, and she moves towards it constantly. On the great nights, the obsession in her has made her rivetingly beautiful to watch. The old, wild, feral desire was there again last night.

Back in 1996, when failure ambushed her, she would talk with screeching falsity about the future. Sydney was only four years away, she would tell interviewers, while her eyes said that she hardly knew how to get through next week. She thought about it "until I realised I was the last one thinking about it and I'd better just get on with it".

When the certainties fell away from her life, though, she'd fallen hard and troubles lingered incurably. At the World Cross Country championships in Turin in March 1997 she hit the lead within the first 500 metres, only to be devoured by the field. She finished ninth but, worse, she seemed unspeakably lonely and rudderless at a world event as a world class athlete without a coach of any sort.

John Treacy recommended she link up with former English marathon coach and director of the London marathon, Alan Storey. She did, and slowly - it took more than a year - she came to trust his belief that doing less could sometimes mean achieving more.

"I can't accept that there are things I cannot do," she'd said in the spring of 1996. "I just think that if I work harder I can do anything."

Storey had a huge effect, but the key to putting Sonia back together again was Nick Bideau.

There were times this summer when, if Sonia had paid attention to the screaming Australian media and their Cathy Freeman obsession, she would have become unhinged. The experience must have been like moving in with Heathcliff and then seeing Wuthering Heights done tabloid style as Bideau's professional relationship with Freeman ended and the media teased out the personal acrimony.

Yet Nick Bideau is probably the best thing to have happened in her life these past few years. Apart from the obvious emotional stability he brought, he has a decade of experience of dealing with winners and creating the right mental environment for winning. This past week Sonia has been happier than most observers have ever seen her at a major event. With so much riding on the line, that was a remarkable tribute to Bideau's subtle influence.

It was Bideau's gentle nudging, too, which persuaded her towards the 5,000 metres at a time when her choice was narrowing towards the longer, later race. Nick told Sonia she'd be unhappy sitting looking at the 5,000 on telly knowing she might have plundered a medal. He was right. She plunged in at the start of the track programme and came away a different woman.

"It wouldn't have mattered if she'd come last tonight," Bideau said afterwards, as his daughter sucked her bottle as she lay sleepy in his arms, "because we're happy."

And knowing that, knowing the small, good things of life, it armoured her for one last tussle. Quite a story. Quite a woman.