Sonia makes an early return

Athletics: A swift return to full training has convinced Sonia O'Sullivan to start her track season on Friday night at the Cardinal Invitational meeting in San Francisco.

O'Sullivan has been training in the mountains of southern California since her unusually low-key performance in the Great Ireland Run back on April 3rd, where it seemed her form might take several months before regaining a competitive level on the track.

Yet training in the past three weeks was described by her partner Nic Bideau as "back at full speed" and it was decided that the Cardinal meeting would be an ideal test before returning to their London base. O'Sullivan will run the 5,000 metres, which includes reasonable opposition including several of the best Americans.

It will also provide a useful warm-up for the more testing Balmoral Road Race in Scotland, set for Saturday week, where O'Sullivan will come up against reigning World Cross Country champion Benita Johnson of Australia, who has also been training in California with the Cork athlete.

That race will also be over 5,000 metres in a change from its traditional five-mile distance.

Clearly O'Sullivan feels the injury problems she endured before the Great Ireland Run are now fully behind her. The stress fracture she sustained at the start of the year does require cautious recovery.

And her fitness that day in the Phoenix Park was well short of her desired level, evident in the way she trailed home fourth and 36 seconds behind Catherina McKiernan over the 10km race.

"You'll see a different athlete in Balmoral than you saw in Phoenix Park," added Bideau, who along with O'Sullivan has remained calmly confident about her ability to regain something of her old form as the Athens Olympics approach. With the 5,000 metre qualifying time already secured from last summer, the final countdown to the Olympics is unlikely to feature frequent visits to the Grand Prix circuit.

Instead a highly selective list of races will be mapped out, where the 34-year-old O'Sullivan will hope to slowly regain the sort of confidence she'll want to take with her to Athens.

Alistair Cragg, who displayed fine form at the Penn Relays at the weekend, is still chasing the Olympic qualifying time in the men's 5,000 metres and has also provisionally entered the Cardinal meeting, thinking only of the 13 minutes 21.50 seconds necessary to book his ticket to Athens.

The meeting takes place at the Stanford University track outside of San Francisco, and will mark O'Sullivan's first competitive appearance in the area.