ATHLETICS: That's it then, signed and sealed. It's over. Sonia O'Sullivan, our greatest of all time. We've seen the end. Chances are we'll never see her likes again. We've seen her finish her fifth Olympic final, cast out into loneliness and over a lap behind all three medallists. It was the saddest and most sorrowful sight of her career.

It wasn't the ending she deserved but it was the ending she got - tearful, traumatic, and inconsolable. What unfolded in Athens last night was heartbreaking and distressing and moving, all at the same time.

For O'Sullivan it was something that can never be put into words.

Before we remember this we should remember the times we've known, her tearing around the track, surging and waiting and kicking, punching the air. The times she was hurting and tiring and dying. The times she smiled and cried and some cried with her.

Now at 34 those moments of glory and hope and redemption are gone. Finishing last in her 5,000 metre final, the race that should have been a final moment to savour, whether she ever won a medal or not, was instead a moment that cut in to the heart, tore into every emotion, and hurt like no other race she'd ever run. Even the nightmare of Atlanta eight years ago and the pain of Paris last summer never felt like this.

Without the Irish supporters in the stadium she said she wouldn't have finished. That and the fact that it was her last Olympics. She could have walked off the track at any stage after the opening lap and a half, when she'd already fallen way off the pace, and the story would have hurt as much. But it wouldn't have had any pride.

When we see her now in the mixed zone, her eyes red and unable to cry anymore, she briefly explores those feelings. How she'd hadn't felt well for the past two days, that physically she wasn't right. That only mentally had she any reason to be there.

"No, I didn't feel very well at all. You come here with great hopes and expectations, and things don't always work out the way you want them to.

"And I have been a little sick the past few days. But you try to eat and drink as well as you can. Obviously it wasn't there tonight. And at the Olympic Games if you're a tiny bit off your form it shows straight away. And it showed straight away out there tonight.

"As soon as the pace was anything like it should be, I couldn't do anything about it. I came here to do my best. I'll have to find something else though to bring some happy memories home from here.

"But it is still a great thing to be a part of the Olympics. I know there are a lot of people in Ireland who try their hardest to get here, so I'm not going to say I'm not happy to be here."

Then with her restless farewell she looks to the future and finds nothing: "That's the hardest thing. I love being fit and I love training and I love racing. But I think at this level maybe I've had my time."

The time now belongs to the young Africans. Meseret Defar of Ethiopia, just 21 and already the world indoor champion, took the gold in a fearless 14:45.65. The Kenyan Isabella Ochichi took silver, she's only 24. Taking bronze was another Ethiopian Tirunish Dibaba and she's only 19. Turkey's big hope Elvan Abeylegesse couldn't handle the pressure and finished 12th.

O'Sullivan's race, though, had lasted only the opening lap. After a foolishly slow circuit of almost 90 seconds the field was first spread out by the Chinese athlete Yingjie Sun. O'Sullivan went from second to second last, and then out the back door.

It was a cool night but her legs were burning.

With three laps not yet run the gap was 40 metres. By halfway she was over 100 metres down. Finally, and most agonising of all, she was passed by the leading trio shortly into the final 800 metres. She'd been passed by five runners by the time they hit the bell, and another two more passed her on the final straight. That's seven runners, half the field, had lapped the Sydney silver medallist.

Yet there was a respectful cheer from the entire stadium when she eventually crossed the finish line. Her time of 16:20.90 was over a minute behind the next-to-last finisher. One athlete, the 37-year-old Kenyan Edith Masai, had dropped out.

Right now, then, this is the race she's left us with. But not the race she'll be remembered for.

Think again then of the times she walked into the major athletic stadiums around the world and the country stopped to watch. Split, Barcelona, Stuttgart, Helsinki, Gothenburg, Atlanta, Athens, Budapest, Sydney, Paris.

Think of the numbers. Aged 34, two kids. Her fourth Olympics and fifth final. The 10 other major championship finals. Her four gold medals, two silvers. Her two fourths.

Think of how we'd written her off as all washed up after the world championships in Paris last August, her last place finish and her mindset at the time seeming irreparable. How she did everything she could to come back for Athens, to allow us to once more hope with her.

This on a day that had begun with another familiar story. An Irish walker was having problems out on the roads, and wasn't looking good. So just after the 12km mark of her 20km race, Olive Loughnane dropped out.

The mood of the winner couldn't have been more contrasting. Athanasia Tsoumeleka, the 22-year-old without any previous walking honours, treated the home crowd to the most unexpected of victories, claiming the gold medal in a personal best time of 1:29.12.