O'Sullivan continues countdown

Sonia O'Sullivan is to have her next race in Holland on Sunday in the quickening countdown to the start of the outdoor track season in this Olympic year.

In keeping with her plan of building methodically in the approach to the Sydney Games, O'Sullivan will line up for a 5 km road race in Hilversum in the second of a series of runs designed to bring her to full racing fitness.

Unlike her recent success at Balmoral, where she had to break Tegla Loroupe and Joyce Chepchumba in turn en route to victory in a five-mile race, none of the top Kenyans are in Sunday's event.

She will, however, face the experienced South African Elena Meyer, who is taking time off from her marathon training to test her early-season fitness.

Meyer, who is a close friend out of competition, has figured in some absorbing duels with O'Sullivan in recent years without winning any of the more important ones.

Like the Irish athlete, she is assessing her fitness and so will be anxious to finish close to O'Sullivan over a distance which is now some way short of her best.

The bulk of the entry is made up of local athletes, but O'Sullivan still sees it as an opportunity to settle into a winning rhythm.

"It always feels good to win races, no matter how apparently insignificant they are," she said.

"It's a good confidence booster and the longer the sequence lasts the bigger the benefits. The Balmoral run gave me a good lift, and I hope to have at least one more road race after Sunday before going back to the track."

O'Sullivan's first major track run of the season is likely to be over 5,000 metres at Helsinki on June 15th.

After that, she will lighten her training programme with the occasional race, and the hope is that by the time she gets to Sydney in mid-September she will be in the best racing condition of her career.

That's an aspiration shared by Catherina McKiernan, who in spite of a relatively low-key return from a protracted injury at Paris last Sunday, is still reasonably upbeat about her prospects of regaining a racing edge over the next five months.

Like O'Sullivan, she is conscious of the need to select the right races in her preparations for the Olympic Games, but, reassured by the fact that she ran the 15 kilometres without any real stress, she is now facing into the months ahead with greater reassurance.

An 18-year-old Czech athlete died in Prague yesterday from injuries suffered when he was hit by a hammer that landed outside the normal landing area. Zuzana Krejcova, who competes in the 800 metres, died from head and neck injuries after being transported to a hospital in Leberec by helicopter on Monday.

At the time of the accident the young woman was sitting with a team-mate some five metres outside the normal landing area when tragedy struck.

Fellow Czech Vladimir Maska, a finalist at the World Championships last year in Seville, Spain, who made the errant throw, was being treated for shock.