Sonia always resonates while some sound off

TV VIEW: Resonance. Paul McGinley has it. He didn't before two weeks ago, does this week. The Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) has it. Didn't a decade ago, does now.

Sonia O'Sullivan has it, always did, always will.

O'Sullivan resonated from our screens yesterday morning in the north of England. Striding out over the Tyne Bridge in Newcastle through Jarrow and finally along England's north-east coast, O'Sullivan ran almost as fast for a half marathon as any athlete in history. Only England's Paula Radcliffe edges out the Cork mother of two, her world record still standing for the 13.1 miles.

There is little doubt about what the BBC think of O'Sullivan. They think of her as we all do, as an astonishing talent who fittingly is being appreciated now while she is still active, displaying the breadth of her talent and beating the best in the world.

A total of 47,000 runners began the Great North Run, a race that former Olympic distance runner Brendan Foster began about 20 years ago.

Foster was in Ireland recently. "When I was over a few weeks ago, the debate was raging as to whether Sonia was the best Irish sports person ever," said Foster. "She holds all of the Irish records from 800 metres upwards. Today I'll tell you Sonia means business. She has two missions. She's preparing for the New York Marathon so she will want to run fast and she wants to win."

O'Sullivan took off from the start, running the first mile in under five minutes. The BBC leaves her at it and breaks away to Jane, one of the fun runners. Jane was out training for the event; fell and broke her leg; was helicoptered to hospital; stayed there for five days while they put her in plaster and there she was, perky and willing on the start line in a wheelchair.

Beside her was an Indian looking man 91 years old, who took up running at 89. He didn't say a word but his entourage pointed out that he, too, was something of a world champ - for his age group of course. Bless him. Bless her.

By halfway Sonia had cracked two Olympic champions and a former winner of the race. Fernanda Ribeiro, a world, European and Olympic champion was further back.

"A huge pb (personal best) for Sonia," observed Steve Cram. "Yet another Irish record for Sonia," said Foster.

In a month she will run in her first New York marathon. Over that distance Catherina McKiernan's name is more resonant. But for O'Sullivan, we continue to set impossibly high expectations, while she continues to meet them.

On RTÉ sports' news on Wednesday Terry McHugh appeared irate and despondent. The six times Olympian and multiple Irish record breaker in the javelin is chairman of the embryonic Athletes' Commission, which the OCI initially feted and now refuses to recognise. Yogi Bear might have said that this was déjà vu all over again.

As McHugh aired his grievances, you found yourself totting up the numbers of disputes the OCI and its president Pat Hickey have been involved in over the years. There have been disagreements with Bernard Allen, Jim McDaid, Irish sailing, Irish canoeing, Irish athletics, Irish basketball, Irish doctor Moira O'Brien, RTÉ radio, the Sunday Independent, Sunday Tribune, the then Cork Examiner, John Treacy and the Irish Sports council and now one of its own limbs, the Athletes' Commission.

Only one thing to say - bon voyage Terry and Pat, it's business as usual but this is more your New York Marathon than Great North Run.

For anyone not quite golfed-out after the Ryder Cup "feeding frenzy", McGinley appeared in a more relaxed fourball with Padraig Harrington in the Dunhill Links, a competition which twins professional players with amateurs over three different golf courses, Carnoustie, Kingsbarns and St Andrews.

McGinley, already haunted by putts anywhere in the range of seven to 11 feet and a trigger now for most commentators to relive the final winning stroke at The Belfry, was not wearing his serious competition face. JP McManus and Dermot Desmond, were the amateur players partnering the two Ryder Cup team-mates.

Boris Becker was playing in another fourball as was the drummer of the rock band Bon Jovi and former Dutch great Johan Cruyff, who, we were reliably informed scored 33 goals in 48 games for Holland. Gary Lineker, a four-handicapper, was taking part as was his BBC panel collegue Alan Hansen.

"They're probably asking the professionals how to hit a golfball straight and telling them how to curve a football," guessed Bruce Critchley.