SO. Crawling from the wreckage here comes Sonia O'Sullivan.
Twelve months after she departed the Olympic Games with her career in shreds and her head spinning, the remarkable Cork woman has replenished her body and soul.
Tomorrow night in Athens in the 1,500 world championship final, she takes her place in the limelight again at 5.40 p.m. Irish time.
The return to the big time was sealed last evening with a semi-final performance which while it will hardly have intimidated O'Sullivan's opponents at least nourished her spirits with encouragement and positive auguries.
Sonia finished fourth in the first semi-final of the night, a hard run and tightly fought affair.
"You'd need boxing gloves out there," she said of a race which was one long and desperate jostle for position.
Coming into the second last bend on the final lap, O'Sullivan had looked to be in trouble, holding second last position in the field. A kick of acceleration took her past five stragglers, however, and back into contention.
"I lost concentration during the race and lost my position but I got back and looked at the screen and saw I was in qualifying position and eased off. I'm happy."
O'Sullivan's qualifying time of 4.05.31 was the fourth fastest of the qualifiers for tomorrow night's final. But of more significance in any assessment of her chances of winning gold was the failure to qualify of Olympic champion, Svetlana Masterkova. Kelly Holmes, the fastest 1,500 metre runner in the world this year, was eliminated, suffering from injury in Saturday's heats.
O'Sullivan impassively watched Masterkova's demise in the second semi-final from a monitor in the media area before skipping off with a discernible bounce in her stride.
"I feel better today than I did yesterday," she said, referring to her first round race early on Saturday morning from which she submitted a time some five seconds slower than last night. "I have a day off now, I'm feeling good and on Tuesday the real racing begins."
If O'Sullivan harbours any doubts about the fact that she has yet to look like the unbeatable and ruthlessly intimidating athlete she was at the world championships two years ago, she disguises them well.
The strained, tear-washed post-race press conferences of Atlanta seemed a million years away last night.
"I looked up at the screen coming down the last straight and saw there were just five of us in contention for five places. It was a fast heat so I thought why bother. I just eased off for the last 60 metres or so. There's no point in killing yourself in a semi-final. I love that big screen."
Her revival is an extraordinary feat, even from a woman who has been retailing the extraordinary for half a decade now.
A year ago, the most famous urinary tract infection in Irish athletics history deprived her of an effective Olympic challenge in Atlanta. In the aftermath she made sweeping changes in both her personal and professional lives. This summer she has been working under the guidance of a new coach, Englishman, Alan Storey.
Even so, just six weeks ago O'Sullivan walked off a track in Sheffield having trailed home 10th in a mediocre 1,500 metres field, 13 seconds behind the winner, Kelly Holmes. If her running career was alive that night it was hard to detect a pulse.
O'Sullivan checked into the workshop after that night, freeing herself from competition and media contact. She came to Athens having dismantled and reassembled herself.
O'Sullivan has seemed like a happy athlete here in Athens. Twelve months ago, picking her way through the rubble of her career like a sweaty wraith, it seemed doubtful that she would ever recover the obsessive hunger which made her the world's top-ranked middle-distance runner. This weekend she looked like a woman at peace with a new sense of perspective.
"I was a bit nervous coming back out to the track but I'm definitely enjoying it. I'm relaxing and enjoying things. I've worked hard to be here. I'll make the most if it."
Early tomorrow evening, then, Sonia O'Sullivan seeks to pull off the most remarkable resurrection since Lazarus. A city still haunted by the gods of athletics seems just the right place to do it in.