Swiss time a crucial indicator for Sonia

ATHLETICS/Zurich Grand Prix: By 6.45 this evening, or an hour later by local Swiss watches, Sonia O'Sullivan will have a fair idea of her true form heading into the Athens Olympics. More than any stop on the Grand Prix circuit, the Weltklasse meeting in Zurich still matters a lot to O'Sullivan. More importantly at this stage of the season, it will decide her mindset going into the heats of the Olympic 5,000 metres in exactly two weeks' time.

Unlike what you would get most years at the Weltklasse, however, this evening's 3,000 metres is not quite the full dress rehearsal for the upcoming major championship.

The 17-strong field does include the leading Kenyan Edith Masai and the Australian world cross-country champion, Benita Johnson, but most of the other main contenders for glory in Athens have stayed away.

It's still a timely test for O'Sullivan. Her only other 3,000 metres of the season, in Madrid on July 17th, was as poor as anything she's produced over the distance; she finished well down the field in nine minutes, 12.87 seconds. Officially, that remains her best time of the season although she did pass through in 9:01.60 when running her impressive 14:58.43 in a 5,000-metre race in California back on April 30th.

Masai is the fastest in the field with her 8:40.03 when winning in Stockholm and another Kenyan, Ines Chenonge, has run 8:43.80, although she's not competing in Athens. Derebe Alemu is the top Ethiopian (8:50.74) but the strong favourite for gold in Athens, the young Turk Elvan Abeylegasse, is staying well away from the spotlight of Zurich.

Realistically, O'Sullivan will want to run under 8:50 to prove that, at 34, she still has the necessary speed and confidence before making the journey to Athens. What matters more than anything though is that she doesn't run badly.

Yet there is something about Zurich that brings out the best in O'Sullivan. Last year, her season was similarly unbalanced and she went to Switzerland and ran 8:37.55, by far her fastest time of the season and good enough to take second place to Gabriela Szabo, who clocked a then world-leading 8:33.95.

Neither O'Sullivan nor the Romanian could quite hold that form at the World Championships in Paris a couple of weeks later, but this is still the time of the season when an athlete definitely wants to show some spring in the step. And before the Sydney games of 2000, Zurich, more than any other race, provided O'Sullivan with the send-off that ultimately helped her secure Olympic silver.

It will also be interesting to see how the Ugandan runner Dorcus Inzikuru performs. It was Inzikuru who just edged out Maria McCambridge over 5,000 metres in Huesden last weekend, but while she is going to the Olympics, McCambridge, of course, is being left behind.

Most other events on the Zurich programme this evening fully live up to the Weltklasse - world class - billing. And given this is the fourth stop in the search for the Golden League jackpot, most attention will fall on the athletes still in contention for the $1 million.

After the Bislett Games, Rome and Paris, just five remain in the hunt: Tonique Williams-Darling of the Bahamas (400 metres), Hestrie Cloete of South Africa (high jump), Felix Sanchez of the Dominican Republic (400 metre hurdles), Christian Olsson of Sweden (triple jump) and Virgilijus Alekna of Lithuania (discus).

Away from those events other pre-Olympic pressures continue to mount.

Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco will want to make another clear statement about his number-one status over 1,500 metres. And reigning Olympic 100-metre champion Maurice Greene faces off again against his now greatest threat, the young Jamaican Asafa Powell, who upstaged the American when running 9.91 in London last Friday.

Full coverage of what is still the best one-day meeting in world athletics is on Sky Sports 3 from 6.30 pm - just in time to catch O'Sullivan and company on the starting line.