O'Sullivan and McKiernan go head to head again

Athletics: For only the second time Sonia O'Sullivan and Catherina McKiernan will face each other on home ground, and so provide the main attraction in tomorrow's Great Ireland Run in the Phoenix Park

This time it could turn out to be a reasonable contest, with McKiernan gradually regaining her old form after several years of injury. They raced against each other in June in the women's Mini Marathon in Dublin, and O'Sullivan won relatively easily, with McKiernan second.

Tomorrow's race starts at 9.30 a.m. and covers a demanding 10 kilometres. McKiernan has had some creditable wins on the road in recent months, including the adidas five- and 10-mile challenges in the Phoenix Park, and just last Sunday week over four miles in Carlow she ran a course record 21 minutes 34 seconds.

"This is a race I do want to run well in," she said. "Training has been going quite well, and I'm starting to prepare now for the cross-country season, where I plan to run the European championships in December."

For O'Sullivan, the disappointing performance in the final of the World Championship 5,000 metres at the end of August is a slowly fading memory, and she has taken to the roads on three occasions since in an effort to speed up that process. Her most recent run was the fourth-place finish in the Great North Run half-marathon in Newcastle, also last Sunday week, where she clocked 68:40 behind Paula Radcliffe's world best of 65:40.

"Right now I'm just enjoying these road races," she said. "And it's always fun to race back in Ireland. It was just one of those summers where it started out like a roller-coaster, and it was hard to get off. And I just never really got the momentum to get to the top."

Tomorrow's event has already attracted more than 2,000 entries. Elite fields for both the men's and women's races have also been assembled, ensuring O'Sullivan and McKiernan won't have it all their own way.

Australia will be part of the 10-nation team race, and Benita Johnson is likely to provide the main opposition in the women's, even though she is also due to compete in the World Half Marathon in Portugal this morning

Leading the Irish challenge in the men's race will be Peter Mathews and Séamus Power, both previous winners of the race when staged in Loughrea. Australia's Craig Mottram, however, will be the man to beat.