Yesterday's announcement by the European Athletic Association that Christine Arron had been chosen as European Woman of the Year was received with some acclaim in France.

Elsewhere the reaction to the judgment of some 267 athletics experts, made up of journalists, national federation representatives and meeting organisers, was largely one of astonishment.

In choosing Arron ahead of Sonia O'Sullivan they could be said to have spiced up the awards system with the selection, for the first time, of the talented French sprinter.

O'Sullivan, on the other hand, has been there or thereabouts at poll time for much of the last five years, winning the European award in 1995 and only narrowly failing on a least one other occasion.

Yet it is difficult to endorse the findings of a poll which, rather than enhancing the image of a sport in urgent need of good public relations, is in some danger of devaluing it.

Consider the records of the "top two", separated by a mere 43 votes in the end. Current European 100 metres record holder Arron won the sprint title in Budapest in a manner which suggested that she may yet develop into a genuine contender for Olympic honours in Sydney in two years' time.

Yet throughout the summer she was no more than a member of the supporting cast as the United States' Marion Jones dominated sprinting so emphatically. In sharp contrast to the golden years when O'Sullivan was frequently invincible in 1,500 and 3,000 metres competition, it has to be recorded that the Irish athlete did not win a Grand Prix race throughout the summer.

That may have been a factor in the final reckoning. And yet on the days it mattered most, in major championship competition, she was as supremely authoritative as ever.

In the space of six months, she won two world cross country titles, two European Championships at 5,000 and 10,000 metres, set a world record at two miles and then, captaining Europe, delivered an important victory in the 5,000 metres in the World Cup in Johannesburg.

To set the seal on what was by any standards, a spectacularly successful year, she turned to road racing 10 days ago and duly made her point there also, beating the European marathon champion, Manuela Machado of Portugal, in the Great North half-marathon at Newcastle.

In terms of breadth, there has never been a programme quite like it, combining as it did, all three facets of athletics so successfully that only Marion Jones can claim to have had a better year.

Back at the start of the year when self-belief was low and her career was in some danger of running aground permanently, O'Sullivan would almost certainly have settled for any poll which rated her the number two woman athlete in Europe. Now, in the light of a comeback which gave us some of our more memorable moments in the sport in 1998, she has valid reason to believe that second best is not good enough.

Leading Irish distance runner Seamus Power yesterday announced his intention to run in the Dublin Marathon at the end of the month.

The 27-year-old Power, national inter-county cross-country champion for the last three years, decided to move up the distance and made the necessary adjustments to his training during the summer.

His entry will make him the top domestic contender for the Dublin race on October 28th.