O'Sullivan happy enough

ATHLETICS: Normally a 13th-place finish wouldn't satisfy Sonia O'Sullivan yet she sounded upbeat about her performance in Saturday's Edinburgh International Cross Country. It was her first cross country race in over a year, and there was certainly nothing soft about the competition.

"That was just what I expected and exactly what I wanted from the race," said O'Sullivan, who now returns to Australia still planning to run the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne at the end of March.

"I came here for a hard race and that is exactly what I got and I know that I will improve a lot from it. It was a difficult course and a real test but once I got into the rhythm of the race I felt strong and I was very happy with my form over the last kilometre or so.

"This time last year I was not even running but now I'm totally healthy again and really have only been training at top level for just over three months and this was a bit of a learning process for me, experiencing the competition against the very top again."

It was top class at the front of the field, with Ethiopia's double world champion Tirunesh Dibaba relegated to third. Victory went to Ethiopia's stunning new talent Gelete Burika, still only 19, who produced a finishing sprint usually limited to the track - finishing the 6km race in 19:01.

O'Sullivan, who led part of the first lap, clocked 20:26, finishing 43 seconds ahead of the next Irish finisher, Maria McCambridge, who was 20th in 21.09.

"If I get my citizenship of Australia sorted out I think I can still make the Commonwealth Games," she added.

The men's race saw the indefatigable Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele extend his unbeaten cross country record - but only just - after chasing down the early finishing surge of Saif Saaeed Shaheen of Qatar, winning the 9km race in 26:07. Dublin's Mark Kenneally was 10th in 28.33.

Meath athlete Ciarán McDonagh, meanwhile, has improved his Irish indoor long jump record, leaping exactly eight metres at the Virginia Tech Invitational meeting in the US. That bettered the 7.85 metres he jumped back in 2002, and is 10 centimetres off the World Indoor qualifying standard of 8.10.

It also leaves McDonagh with the longest jump in the world so far this year.