Sonia O'Sullivan suffered the first defeat of her Australian tour at the Melbourne Classic yesterday but still said she was "happy" after achieving an Olympic qualifying time for the 1,500 metres.

O'Sullivan's time of four minutes 8.02 seconds only got her into fifth place in the race, which was won by New Zealander Toni Hodgkinson, after she failed to go with the pace over the last lap.

Yet she was far from dissatisfied after making an Olympic standard at three different distances - 1,500, 5,000 and 10,000 metres - in consecutive weeks.

"Given the range I've covered in the last three weeks and the figures I've made, I can only be satisfied with the way I'm running," she said.

"I ran the 1,500 today purely as a part of my training. I went into the race with a lot of mileage in my legs and as such, I was delighted to break 4:10.

"Without the hard training I did in the days leading up to the race, I think I would have been higher up the finishing order, but that is really not important. The thing that matters is that I'm still running pretty fast," said O'Sullivan.

After running at the back of the field in the early stages, she worked her way back to the leaders approaching the bell. However, when Hodgkinson, a finalist in the 800 metres championship at the Atlanta Olympics, kicked again with 300 metres to go the Irish woman wasn't able to respond.

It was then down to Kenya's Naomi Mugo to lead the chase, but in the end the New Zealander got home safely in four minutes 6.40 seconds with Mugo at 4:06.93 and the 15-year-old Australian girl Georgie Clark, a stable mate of O'Sullivan, third in 4:6.97.

O'Sullivan is due to return to her London home from Australia tomorrow week and plans to leave for the World Cross Country Championships in the Algarve the following Wednesday.

Pending further talks with her coach Alan Storey over the next few days, she has yet to announce her programme in Portugal, but the expectation is that she will now compete in both the short and long course races.

The Melbourne event also saw the Kenyans give notice of their intentions for the Sydney Games. Their middle-distance runners won five titles between them yesterday. The Africans won the men's 800, 1,500, 3,000, 10,000 and 3,000 metres steeplechase finals in grand style, with John Kosgei and William Chirchir setting all-comers records.

Kosegi took the 3,000 metres steelechase in eight minutes 19.47 seconds while Chirchir upset 1,000 metres world record holder Noah Ngeny to take the 1,500 metres in 3:32.55.

Kenya's David Lelei won the 800 metres in 1:43.97, Luke Kipkosei the 3,000 metres in 7:45.20 and Joseph Kimani the 10,000 metres in 28:30.32.