Sonia O'Sullivan is now more optimistic that her form will justify another attempt on the World Cross Country Championships in Portugal next month.
O'Sullivan, who won both the short and long course titles when the championships were staged in Morocco two years ago, has always said that her participation in the Portuguese event would depend on how well she is running at the beginning of March.
That, for her, is still the bottom line, but after returning to Melbourne last Friday from four weeks' altitude training at Falls Creek in northern Australia, she confesses to feeling unusually good.
"Training went well, in some ways even better than expected, and at this point I think I'm ahead of schedule. I'm fit, feeling good and providing I don't hit any problems, I don't see why I shouldn't run in Portugal.
"It will be a good measuring point, a chance to see where I'm at and afterwards I can taper off a little before starting my outdoor track programme. But all that, of course, is conditional on things going well over the next few weeks."
She is planning her first race of the year - over 3,000 metres - on Sunday week before heading for the centrepiece of her Australian programme, the national 10,000 metres championship on February 24th, when she hopes to achieve an Olympic qualifying time for the distance.
"That is far and away the most important race I will run here," she said. "I don't want to go into the summer months still looking for a 10,000 metres time. Far better that I do it early in the year and then put it to the back of my mind until much closer to the Games in Sydney.
"It's important, too, that I run the 10,000 down here for I'm still only a learner at this distance. So far, I've run just once at the distance, when winning the European Championship in Budapest and clearly, I need to know more about it before running in the Olympics."
After that, O'Sullivan is expected to oppose Georgie Clarke - at 15, the new golden girl of Australian athletics - over 1,500 metres on March 2nd. But at that point she will already have decided whether to challenge for the cross country titles.
Sadly, Catherina McKiernan, Ireland's other big Olympic hope, is still recovering from injury and in her absence, the organisers of the London Marathon are putting together an attractive field.
The latest addition to the women's race is Lidia Simon, the Romanian who last Sunday won the Osaka Marathon in the impressive time of two hours, 22 minutes and 54 seconds and Ethiopia's Derartu Tula, the 1992 Olympic 10,000 metres champion. They join Tegla Loroupe and Joyce Chepchumba.
Dr James McDaid, the Minister for Sport, yesterday presented the Nestle sponsorship cheques to the Irish Schools' Athletic Association and the four provincial organisations. This is the 38th year of Nestle sponsorship and it will cover the schools' cross country championships at Dungarvan on March 11th and the track and field championships at the Morton Stadium, Santry, on June 24th.
