O'Sullivan sticks with 5,000 metres

Athletics: Nothing will change in Sonia O'Sullivan's plan for the Athens Olympics despite her surprisingly bright start to the season, confirmed with Sunday's win in the Manchester 10km road race.

She will remain notably selective in her races and the 5,000 metres will remain her one and only target for Athens.

It was in fact suggested O'Sullivan had been signed up to compete in the Hengelo Grand Prix meeting next Monday, where several Olympic hopefuls such as Haile Gebrselassie and Hicham El Guerrouj will open their outdoor seasons. This was quickly denied, and instead her next outing will be the low-key British Milers Club meeting in Watford on June 12th, where she'll run the 1,500 metres.

"No, I am definitely not doing the 10,000 metres in Athens," said O'Sullivan after Sunday's race, the question clearly prompted by her defeat of Ethiopia's Berhane Adere, the world 10,000-metre champion. It's known Adere will only do the longer distance in Athens.

"I am sticking with the 5,000 again as planned, and I want to sharpen some more of my speed by doing that 1,500 metres in Watford. Right now I couldn't have wished for a better performance than Manchester before starting on the track next month."

With just over 12 weeks before her Olympic 5,000-metre heats, O'Sullivan will probably take in at least one major meeting, most likely the Zurich Golden League meeting on August 6th. Other than that the only thing certain is that the Cork City Sports on July 3rd will also feature.

A more detailed race schedule will be laid down in the coming weeks but at 34 O'Sullivan is not about to take any chances in her final build-up to Athens - most likely her last Olympics. The stress fracture that initially threatened to ruin her entire season has also responded perfectly to Gerard Hartmann's treatment, and clearly over-racing at this stage would be foolhardy.

Cathal Lombard also gained considerable encouragement from his third-place finish in the men's race in Manchester, which included the scalp of Kenya's Paul Tergat. The world marathon record holder is returning from a calf-muscle injury and finished fourth, 15 seconds behind Lombard. But beating Tergat on any occasion is worthy of mention.

Lombard too had done much of the front running, holding down a 30-metre lead after the first mile before the eventual winner, Craig Mottram, helped claw him back.

Like O'Sullivan, Lombard will be highly selective in his build-up to the 10,000 metres in Athens, with the 5,000 metres at Rome's Golden Gala meeting on July 2nd his next high-profile outing. That will be followed by a final period of altitude training at St Moritz.

Catherina McKiernan, incidentally, had also been targeting the Watford meeting as the possible source of her Olympic qualification over 10,000 metres, but instead she'll run the distance at the Gateshead Grand Prix on June 27th, hoping that Paula Radcliffe, among others, will help pull her to the required 31:45.