Home town gets the blues

Was she pushed, shoved or otherwise? Was she ready or not? In Cobh, where Sonia O'Sullivan developed her athletic skills, people were agog last evening as she set out to restore her reputation and to prove that the events of last summer's Olympics in Atlanta were only a minor glitch during an otherwise stunning track career.

Normally her parents, Mary and John, would have been at the track to see their daughter running but, last night, they were not in Athens, they were at home in Cobh.

Mary O'Sullivan said on Monday night that she wouldn't allow the media into her home and that the family needed its own time to itself to watch the race. This was unusual. Previously, Sonia's family readily welcomed the media.

In the O'Sullivan house last night, the answering machine was on.

Elsewhere in Cobh last night, and particularly in Mansworth's Bar, close to the O'Sullivan home, where many of her friends had regularly gathered to watch her successes, there was a great air of expectation and a belief that the Cobh athlete had returned to form.

There was a festive mood before the race and nobody in the bar believed that Cobh's favourite daughter - Sonia - would be beaten. At the end, there was an air of resignation and people were a bit too shocked to discuss what seemed to be the demise of a great athlete.

One of her greatest fans, and near neighbour, who asked not to be named, said: "It's a sad night for Cobh and it's a sad night for Sonia."

After the race John O'Sullivan, said that he was very disappointed at the outcome because he believed his daughter was confident and was looking good. It seemed clear, he added, that she was upset by what had happened during the race and that her concentration had been affected. Asked if he felt that his daughter's career was now effectively at an end, he replied:

"I don't feel that's the end of Sonia, she's still relaxed and still a great athlete, but I would have to say that she does not appear to have the same confidence she did before Atlanta."

Peter Byrne adds: It also emerged last night that Zurich may now stage a rerun of the race. Officials of the big Weltklasse meeting had no plans, it seems to invite either O'Sullivan or Regina Jacobs to the meeting but all that changed after they had become entangled in the last lap incident.