Doubts were cast on Sonia O'Sullivan's Olympic programme when she said yesterday that it was too early to commit herself to a specific schedule.

During her stay in Australia earlier this year, O'Sullivan achieved Olympic qualifying standards at 1,500, 5,000 and 10,000 metres in an impressive illustration of her range of distances.

The understanding at the time was that she would concentrate on the 5,000 and 10,000 metres double, using the 1,500 metres to sharpen her speed in her pre-Olympic races. Now that assumption could prove misleading.

"People seem to have made up their minds from a long way back that I would run at the longer distances, presumably because I did the five and 10 kilometres double in the European Championships in Budapest," she said.

"Of course, I haven't ruled out the double for Sydney but neither have I ruled it in. The simple fact is that it is far too early as yet to say for certain what events I'll be doing.

"That will depend on, among other things, how I'm running at the start of September. Together with Alan Storey, my coach, I've worked out a draft of the races I'd like to run between now and September.

"But I've got to wait and see how I'm going at the start of September before making up my mind on Sydney. Then, I'll sit down with Alan and we'll make our plans based on form in the run-up to the Games."

O'Sullivan is planning to run at least one more road race before making her seasonal debt on the track next month.

A 10-mile race in Milan, a week on Saturday, is expected to bring out many of the leading long distance runners in Europe and based on her performance there, she may then confirm her entry for a 5,000 metres track event at Helsinki on June 15th.

Catherina McKiernan is expected to have the second in a series of preparatory races for the Olympic marathon, at a venue, yet to be confirmed, at the end of the month.

McKiernan, who finished 12th on her return to competition in a 15 kilometres race in Paris a fortnight ago, is satisfied that she has finally distanced herself from the injury which proved so expensive earlier in the year.

Recent training sessions are reported to have gone well and she plans to have three or four more races before setting off for Australia.

Former Olympic champion Dieter Baumann's appeal against a ruling not to allow him to resume competing while awaiting a final decision on his doping case will be heard on May 18th, a court spokesman said yesterday on Wednesday.

If the court rules in his favour he could compete in the German championships on May 27th.