O'Sullivan set to face Ribeiro over 5,000 metres in Milan

SONIA O'SULLIVAN is on course for a possible meeting with Fernanda Ribeiro, the Olympic 10,000 metres champion, in the IAAF Grand Prix finals at Milan on Saturday.

Both are among the 12 athletes qualified for the 5,000 metres in which a prize of £32,000 will be on offer for the winner.

A spokesman for the organisers of the meeting said yesterday that O'Sullivan had been confirmed as a definite starter and that they also expected Ribeiro to be in the field.

"At this point there is nothing to suggest that Fernanda will not run," he said. "She is qualified and since this is the last meeting of the Grand Prix season she is expected in Milan within the next couple of days."

If all goes to plan, it will be their first meeting since the World 5,000 metres championship final at Gothenburg last year when O'Sullivan surged over the last 200 metres to claim the biggest success of her career.

Since then their careers have diverged sharply. Whereas the Irishwoman continued to run at distances up to 5,000 metres and ultimately had a disastrous Olympics, Ribeiro decided to concentrate with spectacular success on the 10,000 metres.

The wisdom of the move was powerfully illustrated in the Olympic Games in Atlanta when the Portuguese athlete came on track to rein in China's Wang Junxia on the last lap of the 10,000 metres final.

That was one of the high points of the centennial Olympics, a remarkable illustration of power, speed and commitment, which elevated Ribeiro to a place among the superstars of the Games.

Although her training programme has been geared in the main to the 10,000 metres this season, she has also produced some good performances over 5,000 metres and as the world record holder for the distance at 14 minutes 36.45 seconds, obviously possesses the pace to ask pertinent questions of O'Sullivan's current form.

For O'Sullivan, it would be a sizeable step up in class from her comeback race at Rieti last Sunday when a time of 14 minutes 50.14 seconds sufficed to leave her five metres clear of Olympic 5,000 metres silver medallist Pauline Konga at the finish.

So she returns to the Grand Prix circuit for the first time since the meeting at Crystal Palace on July 12th.

Unlike Ribeiro, she still has an outside chance of winning the overall Grand Prix prize but the money and prestige at stake on Saturday will still be sufficient to guarantee a big response by the Portuguese athlete.

It would be unwise to portray the race as a straight duel between the pair for also in the field will be Konga, Roberta Brunet (Italy), the Olympic bronze medallist, Gete Wami (Ethiopia), third behind Ribeiro and Wang in the 10,000 metres in Atlanta, and the highly rated Romanian, Gabriela Szabo.

Ireland will be dually represented in Saturday's race for Catherina McKiernan is also qualified to run after some sound performances in earlier Grand Prix events.