Sonia O'Sullivan showed that she can certainly compete with the best middle distance runners in the world when she finished second in the women's 3000 metres at the Nice Grand Prix meeting last night.
In one of the most exciting races of the evening O'Sullivan kicked for home in typical fashion 200 metres out, only to find Moroccan Zohra Ouaziz refusing to die.
Ouaziz then came back at the Irish woman and the two were locked together going down the final straight in a fantastic finish, one that Ouaziz just snatched on the line in 8:28.66 seconds, the fastest time of the year. O'Sullivan finished with a more than respectable 8:28.82.
The race set off at a fast pace, the main group passing the 1,000 metre mark in 2:40.00, indicating that the time would be good. O'Sullivan was always at the front of the group, leading for much of the race, but dropping into second place to allow the others to do a little of the lead work when the pacemaker dropped out.
By the halfway stage the first four - O'Sullivan, Ouaziz, Portugal's Fernanda Ribeiro and Gete Wami of Ethiopia - had lost the rest of the pack and with two laps remaining Ribeiro too was burned off.
Coming off the final bend, O'Sullivan made her move off Ouaziz's right shoulder and as she cut into the inside lane clipped the toe of her opponent. The Moroccan staggered but kept her feet before bravely digging in and finally holding on for victory.
O'Sullivan will be pleased with the time and certainly looked more comfortable over 3,000 metres than she did in recent 1,500 metres races. She will ultimately focus on the 5,000 metres at the European Championships in Budapest in August.
Another Irish athlete also made an big impression last night. James McElroy, clearly one of the emerging international talents, ran a personal best of 1:45.32 in coming fourth in the 800 metres, with Mahjoub Haida of Morocco winning in 1:44.87.
McElroy could soon be challenging the 1:44.82 Irish record of David Matthews.
The Co Antrim athlete stayed at the back of the pack in the hectic early part of the race, then, belying his youth and inexperience, made his way to the front to put in a strong finish.
McElroy's previous best time was 1:46.07. His new time puts him third in the all-time Irish rankings, behind Matthews and Marcus O'Sullivan.
In the mile, Hicham El-Guerrouj came agonisingly close to lowering Noureddine Morceli's world record. The 23-year-old Moroccan, who smashed the 1500 metres record in Rome on Tuesday, ran 3:44.60, just over two-tenths of a second outside Morceli's time.
He wanted to run 3:42 and didn't bother to hide his disappointment.
"I wanted to pulverise the record but a difficult recovery and problems with the very quick front runners didn't help my cause," he said.
As well as Ouaziz in the women's 3,000 metres, best performances of the year were set by Kim Batten of the United States in the women's 400 metres hurdles and Cuba's Xavier Sotomayor in the men's high jump.
Namibian star Frankie Fredericks ran 10.00 seconds in the 100 metres, ahead of Tony McCall of the USA (10.18) and Tim Montgomery of the USA (10.20).
