O'Sullivan is not switching

ATHLETICS: There definitely won't be any switching of allegiance, but Sonia O'Sullivan is still thinking about running for Australia in the Commonwealth Games next March.

She is applying for Australian residency and the liberal Commonwealth rules would allow her to compete under that flag, but if she did have to make a long-term choice of representing one country or the other then there would, she says, be "no choice".

The idea of O'Sullivan competing in the 2006 Games in Melbourne next March had been floating around for the past couple of years, simply because the event was on the doorstep of her Australian home and could keep her motivated to stay in the sport for at least another season. But in no way does it interfere with her enduring desire to run for Ireland.

"The situation I'm in at the moment is that I have to leave Australia every three months," she explained from London yesterday, "because I only hold a visitor visa.

"That has been creating some difficulties so I decided to apply for residency. If I get that then I can also apply for an Australian passport, and therefore hold dual citizenship.

"The Commonwealth Games are more like an invitation event. It's not an IAAF championship, and effectively it means I could run for Australia one week, and be back running for Ireland a week later.

"But it has nothing to do with switching allegiance. If I had to make a choice then there would be no choice. I'd always run for Ireland first.

"I just figured if I am able to fit the Commonwealth Games in at all then why not? It's going to be a big deal here, especially for the kids in school and all that. And the Melbourne stadium is literally a few hundred yards from where I live from October to March."

She also played down the suggestion that it had anything to do with the Irish Sports Council's decision to drop all her grant aid:

"This was suggested to me at least two or three years ago. But my only real concern is to getting the residency in order. At this stage I have filled in all the forms, but I haven't even sent them in yet.

"And there have been plenty of cases before where Irish athletes have competed in the Commonwealth Games, either for Northern Ireland or for England . . . I don't see it as big deal at all.

"To me it's just like Roy Keane playing for Manchester United one weekend and for Ireland the next. That doesn't make him English."

O'Sullivan has been unusually inactive this week, resting up as much as possible for Sunday's London Marathon where she is hoping to break the two-hour, 30-minute barrier for the first time.