LYUDMILA ENQUIST, the Olympic 100 metres hurdles champion, is on her way to the golden double in the world track and field championships at Athens in August.

Enquist, the Russian who brought unexpected riches to her adopted country, Sweden by striking gold in Atlanta, came to Dublin yesterday to illustrate her early season form in the European Cup meeting at Santry.

And judged on the manner in which she repeated her Olympic supremacy over Slovenia's Brigita Bukovec, few will question her ability to add another coveted title to her imposing list of successes.

The winning time of 13.02 seconds was almost half a second outside her winning figures in Atlanta but the fulfilment of victory showed after she had swept across the finish line with 27 hundredths of a second to spare over Bukovec.

Victory carried an important psychological advantage at this stage of the season and for Bukovec. there was the added disappointment of knowing that she again enjoyed the better start.

Just as was the case in Atlanta, Enquist was slow off the blocks but after trailing the Slovenian over the first two obstacles, she eventually got her rhythm going and from that point, there was only one winner.

Fernanda Ribeiro, the other Olympic champion, duly won the 5,000 metres for Portugal at the first stage of the meeting on Saturday but not surprisingly, perhaps, failed in her attempt for the double when she came back on track for the 1,500 metres yesterday.

To her credit, however, the little Portuguese athlete made a brave attempt to defy the sceptics, leading until the last lap when, perhaps inevitably, the bounce began to leave her legs. At that point, the tall Swede, Malin Eweriof was going quite the better of the two and once she decided to increase the pace, she went away from Ribeiro to win in 4 mins 11.41 secs.

There was defeat on the double for the former European champion, Annmari Sandell of Finland who, after following Ribeiro home in the 5,000 metres on Saturday, found the task of doubling up in the 3,000 yesterday, utterly beyond her.

After tucking in behind early pacemaker Gunhild Halle of Norway, Sandell failed to cover the decisive move when the Swiss girl, Anita Weyerrnann opened up a lead of two metres at the bell and after that, there was no way back for her.

Helena Javornik of Slovenia separated Sandell from Weyermann at the finish and in the event those points proved crucial as Slovenia went on to earn promotion to the Super League with just 1.5 points to spare over Sandell's Finland team.