A mischievous Sonia O'Sullivan arrived in Dublin last night and her gentle ribbing of the male side of Irish athletics marked a turn for the double World Cross Country Champion in her ability to keep an audience enthralled.
More comfortable than ever in the spotlight and helping to launch Noel Henry's new book From Sophie to Sonia, a history of women in Irish athletics, O'Sullivan suggested that the next book should be a history of men in Irish athletics.
"I've got some of the title," she said. "You've got to end with Marcus. Just find a name for the beginning."
It was, of course, a reference to Marcus O'Sullivan, the last `great' Irish male runner. Perhaps her comments will put some noses out of joint but clearly it was designed to encourage those talented young male runners now on the circuit. It was a celebration of one half of Irish athletics with O'Sullivan illustrating the evolution of women in the sport with the fact that if she were born in the '60s there would be no race for her in which to run. The first 3000m was introduced in 1975 at the National Championships.
The present, as always, was what she preferred to talk about and after the glory of winning both cross country world titles her ground is safer than it has been for some time. "l know I'll be in St Denis in Paris in early June in a 5000m. It will be a fairly decent race and a first race. Paula Radcliffe will run and also some of the Kenyans and Ethiopians. When the World Cup soccer comes on there won't be very many races, so we have quite a bit of time in between to train and see how we are getting along. The next race after that is the Cork City Sports. I'll run two miles there.
"The first race is always tense. It's something you want to get out of the way and you want to come out of it feeling good. I think I'll feel nervous for that first race but after that I know that I'm really looking forward to running through the summer. I feel like I have a lot of energy for the races and I feel that I've been away from it for a long time. It's kind of like starting all over again.
"I'll be looking at it differently this year rather than saying to myself: `ah I've been here before'."
Of course O'Sullivan hasn't been here before. That perhaps will generate even more interest than any other season in the World Champion's history.
