O'Sullivan names Wami as one of main threats

Gete Wami, the Ethiopian who ran so well in the World Cross Country Championship in the Algarve, was yesterday identified as …

Gete Wami, the Ethiopian who ran so well in the World Cross Country Championship in the Algarve, was yesterday identified as one of the main threats to Sonia O'Sullivan in the Olympic Games at Sydney.

For those who have monitored Wami's remarkable renaissance after she appeared to have slipped past her best, that was to some extent no more than emphasising the obvious. What put this latest assessment apart was that it came from O'Sullivan herself.

Almost every analysis of a major middle or long distance event for women starts and ends with the name of the brilliant Romanian Gabriela Szabo. Leaving Szabo out of the equation, the questioner at a press reception in Dublin yesterday wanted to know who O'Sullivan respected most.

"At this level, you cannot afford to discount anybody but in particular you have to watch every Kenyan or Ethiopian lining up at the start - people like Gete Wami," she said.

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The only surprise was that she omitted to mention Derartu Tulu in the same breath but perhaps that is a warning better left to another day.

O'Sullivan, looking progressively leaner as the Olympic countdown quickens, was in Dublin to announce details of the Loughrea Road Racing Festival which this year will take place on Sunday, October 15th.

Today, she will be the guest of honour at a similar function to announce details of the Capri Sun League competitions, a project with which she has been closely identified in recent years.

Each in its own right has an important place in the domestic calendar but some five months before the opening salvo in the Sydney Games eyes and minds are already focusing on O'Sullivan's attempt to track down the alluring prize which eluded her in Barcelona and again in Atlanta four years later.

From a situation in which observers assumed that she would automatically apply herself to the 5,000 and 10,000 metres double she accomplished in the European Championships in Budapest, a new element of doubt has surfaced about her schedule. And yesterday, she was being careful in her choice of words.

"I'm qualified to run in three events in Sydney, the 1,500, 5,000 and 10,000 metres and I'll go in the one which offers me the best chance of winning a medal.

"Before that I'll run at a range of distances, beginning with a 3,000 metres in Helsinki on June 15th. I intend to ensure that there is a specific reason for every race I run."

That was the logic of a runner who knows precisely how to prepare for the big occasion. And the same sense of pragmatism coloured her response to the vexed question of the gear to be worn by Irish athletes in Australia.

"When I go to the start line, I'll be wearing a green singlet with a shamrock on it," she said. "It doesn't really matter to me, who made it."

The Loughrea race will take place a fortnight after the Games and the hope is that O'Sullivan will have an Olympic medal to exhibit when she presents herself to the crowds.