Athletics: The Irish challenge at next month's European Cross Country Championships in Edinburgh will benefit from the presence of Sonia O'Sullivan.
The Olympic silver medallist, back at her winter training base in Australia, has announced she will contest the event on December 14th, thus creating the real prospect of individual and team medals.
Catherina McKiernan, winner of the inaugural European event in 1994, has already announced her intention to compete in Edinburgh. Like O'Sullivan she has the ability to get into the individual medals, and together they will create a major opportunity for the Ireland team.
It will be O'Sullivan's first appearance in the European cross country, but her strong form in a series of road races recently has convinced her to tackle the event - with the intention being to win it. Her most recent win was a 20-second victory in a 5km race at Noosa, one of Australia's top road running events.
"It was Sonia's third straight victory on the roads and enough to convince her to focus her next month's training on the European cross country," said her partner and agent, Nic Bideau. O'Sullivan, who turns 34 last this month, will then to return to the hard core preparations for next year's Olympic Games in Athens.
It's clear O'Sullivan also wants to try to end the year on a positive note, and get the disappointing show at the World Championships in Paris last August out of her system. She was the first woman to win the long- and short-course events at the World Cross Country Championships, in Morocco in 1998.
McKiernan is also coming into form at the right time, as her second-place finish at the Gent international cross country in Belgium last Sunday week indicated. She also turns 34 later this month, but the four-time world championship silver medallist seems to be improving with every race.
The full Irish teams for Edinburgh will be decided after the National Intercounty Cross Country Championships in Mullingar on November 30th.
With O'Sullivan and McKiernan leading the charge the least the women's team will be aiming for is a repeat of their bronze medal at the World Championships in Dublin in March 2002.
