O'Sullivan runs into more trouble

It was the agony of Atlanta all over again for Sonia O'Sullivan in Athens last evening after she had drifted to eighth place in the 1,500 metres championship, won by Portugal's Carla Sacramento.

As the most dramatic final of the championships so far built to a suitable climax, O'Sullivan was involved in an incident which may have cost her the title and a £40,000 prize. Inevitably, perhaps, it also landed her in trouble with the veteran American, Regina Jacobs, an old adversary from the grand prix circuit.

As the Irish woman was about to do a television interview in a tunnel leading from the track to the dressing area, she was pushed from behind by Jacobs who accused her of costing her (the American) the championship.

O'Sullivan then turned to Patrik Magyar, a Swiss official of ISL, the marketing arm of the International Amateur Athletics Federation, and said that the Swiss runner, Anita Weyermann, who took the bronze medal, should be disqualified.

At that point, Jacobs was fuming, O'Sullivan close to tears and Weyermann, the surprise packet of race, utterly unrepentant for her part in the mayhem which marred the closing stages of the race.

The incident happened as the main title contenders gathered for the final charge down the back straight. At that point, there were still some 260 metres to go, but anybody missing the break up front was clearly going to miss out on a medal.

Then Weyermann, her arms thrashing, bludgeoned her way through the pack, baulking Jacobs who, in turn, collided with O'Sullivan, knocking her off balance.

To prevent herself falling, O'Sullivan grabbed the American's vest, slowing her perceptibly. The full extent of that loss of momentum came into focus when Jacobs, after leading off the last curve, ran out of energy and was passed by Sacramento in the charge for the line.

Alone of the fancied runners, Sacramento succeeded in avoiding trouble, picking her way methodically from the back of the pack before releasing an irresistible surge of power over the last 60 metres.

By then O'Sullivan was going out the back door, slipping back through the field to finish eighth in four minutes 07.81 seconds, more than three seconds slower than the new champion. But with her chance gone, she merely jogged the last 15 metres.

For the 26-year-old Portuguese woman, it was handsome compensation for missing out on this title at Gothenburg two years ago; for Jacobs, possibly the last chance she'll have of winning a major championship, and for O'Sullivan, another chapter in a seemingly endless chronicle of disappointment.

Throughout her career she has been regarded as a scrupulously fair competitor, tall enough and strong enough to take care of herself in what has become an increasingly physical sport in the professional era, but never before publicly accused of unfair tactics.

Grabbing the vest of the person nearest her was the impulsive movement of an athlete attempting to save herself from falling. But the athlete on the receiving end, in this instance Jacobs, didn't see it that way. For her, it was the difference between defeat and a big pay day.

For the second time in 12 months O'Sullivan was close to tears as she came into the undressing area. Accompanied by her Australian friend, Nick Bideau, she hurried away without speaking to the press.

Having had second thoughts, however, she quickly came back to explain her part in the drama and tell of some "unpleasantries in the heat of the moment".

Would O'Sullivan, in the perfect position at the moment of impact, have gone on to confound her critics and take the title? Or was the 33-year-old Jacobs, who only got into the country as a concession after discovering that she'd mislaid her passport, the bigger loser at a stage of her career when a major title may now have passed her by?

Both were agreed that they had winning chances until Weyermann, impervious it seemed to the trouble she was about to cause, muscled her way through the cluster of bodies baring her way to the long-time leader, Malin Ewerlof of Sweden.

Opinion on that appeared to divide on purely tribalistic lines, but the Irish supporters in a near capacity crowd of 50,000 were adamant that O'Sullivan, impressively authoritative in all her moves to that point, was poised to deliver.

Unlike her run in the semifinals on Sunday, she was a lot more decisive on this occasion, never allowing too much of a gap to develop between herself and the leader. The first lap of 66 seconds was not overly fast, as Ewerlof cut out the work, followed closely by the Czech, Andrea Suidesova.

At that point, O'Sullivan, searching out the threats, was a close-up seventh with the eventual winner two places behind her. On lap two, O'Sullivan moved on the outside to fourth, and at the bell had advanced a place to follow Ewerlof and Suidesova with Weyermann and Jacobs running alongside her.

Almost immediately, the race erupted into controversy, however, and the recriminations were to cloud the presentation ceremony some 90 minutes later when Sacramento, forced to run in the shadow of her compatriot, Fernanda Ribeiro for so long, came on stage to accept the acclamation of the crowd.

When the initial disappointment had subsided and a semblance of order restored to that sector of the stadium known as the mixed zone area, O'Sullivan confirmed that she will run in the 5,000 metres championship.

As expected, the heats of that championship, due to be held this morning, have been deleted, and the defending champion will not now return the scene of her latest disaster until the semi-finals tomorrow afternoon.

By that time, the raw pain will undoubtedly have eased, but not, I expect, gone away. Nights such as these tend to live long in the memory and, depending on the hand of fate, occasion different emotions.

It had been a race of high drama but, sadly from an Irish perspective, the fairytale waiting to be scripted about the girl who recovered from the deepest trough of her career to mine gold in the Olympic city must stay shelved for at least another three days.