Feeling the heat: Sonia O'Sullivan trails Kenya's Sally Barsosio and Ethiopia's Berhane Adere during the 10,000m final at Stadium Australia
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THERE have been times when defeat in major championships weighed heavily on Sonia O'Sullivan but in every sense this was different. Immediately, she accepted that sixth in the Olympic 10,000-metre final was simply her best effort in a race that had quickly spun beyond her influence. The silver medal of last Monday night provided a context in which she could fail without self-persecution. No harm; she has carried enough crosses.
As Derartu Tulu, of Ethiopia, crossed the line in a new Olympic record, O'Sullivan was still on the curve of the track heading towards the last bend. Hopes of a medal had long since evaporated. All that drove her was the possibility of an Irish record; 30min 53.37sec was good enough, nearly 20sec inside the old mark, and something for her trouble.
During the week, her coach Alan Storey said that O'Sullivan would need to break the Irish record, at least, just to be competitive. They knew the race would be fast but it turned out to be even faster than they had expected. When the full result flashed up on the big screen in the stadium, the array of landmark times became clear: an Olympic record, five national records, four personal bests, five season's bests. The speed of the train had shifted even the slowest coaches.
The race took shape suddenly and decisively. For the first six laps O'Sullivan settled in behind Paula Radcliffe and appeared to be running within herself as the British girl pushed out 72sec laps. But in the seventh lap, O'Sullivan lost her place, and on the eighth lap, the leading pack of five had gained 12m on O'Sullivan. The metres never came back, and those five leaders became the race.
O'Sullivan had watched the final of the men's 10,000m and decided that Haile Gebrselasie's strategy was the one for her; always on the shoulder of the leader, always in position to cover a move. For her to succeed in a race this distance, she knew that it was critical for her to be involved at the business end, her mind always occupied. All the plan lacked was strength to execute it.
"My intention was to concentrate for as long as possible and to keep up for as long as possible," she said. "I thought, 'I've got to be positive from the start and I've really got to get stuck in here'. I went out there and maybe I was a bit aggressive at the start. I went right after it and when I was behind Paula, I did feel quite comfortable for a while. And then all of a sudden it got away from me. I don't know - there was one
bad lap and it was something similar to the 5,000. I just started drifting back and I lost that position. It was difficult to fight back. I tried to catch up again but they were continuing to go hard."
Watching O'Sullivan slip back, we wondered if the fatigue of four races in eight days had diminished her, but she did not believe it had. She had felt strong before the race and she kept going hard until the end. But she looked back on her season and there were very few fast races to stand to her in the heat of a battle such as yesterday's.
She wondered, though, if Monday night had left other deficits: "I think there might have been emotional [tiredness] more than anything. You have a silver medal and it's in your pocket and it weighs you down for 25 laps around there. There was going to be a point in the race where it was getting a little bit hard and, you know, maybe I was happy with what I'd got. It wasn't the end of the world for me not to win tonight."
Cut adrift, the race became a huge mental challenge. For a few laps she was joined by the Ethiopian, Berhane Adere, and for a while O'Sullivan hoped they could drive each other and close the gap. But Adere soon weakened and O'Sullivan accelerated away from her. The task was hopeless but she had to try.
"All of a sudden the gap was massive and I knew I couldn't bridge it by myself. It would have been helpful if there were a few others around but there was a bunch in front of me and a bunch behind me. There were 20 people in the race. I don't know how I ended up by myself.
"Then I had to think of something else to do because it's a long way to go. There were 15 laps left and I was by myself. I thought, 'How am I possibly going to get around here?' I felt I owed it to myself and I owed it to Alan [Storey] not to throw in the towel and jog around. So I thought, 'Okay, I can run faster than I ever ran before and set an Irish record and it's a starting point for running
championship 10,000s in the future'."
If the race had worked out differently and she had been able to stay with the leaders, O'Sullivan believed she was capable of 30:30, but in this race even that wouldn't have been good enough.
At the bell, Tulu, Gete Wami and Fernanda Ribeiro swept past Radcliffe. The Briton had led for 22 of the 25 laps and run with the courage that is her badge, but she could not set a sufficiently punishing pace to trouble her pursuers. On the back straight Tulu set sail for home and surged with a devastating kick. She covered the last lap in 60sec, 3sec faster than the final lap of the women's 1500m less than an hour later; Wami couldn't respond and Tulu was clear, home in 30:17.49.
O'Sullivan crossed the line 36sec later. In the story of O'Sullivan and these Games, it is already a footnote.
Denis Walsh
