The most significant victory in Sonia O'Sullivan's return to the top of world athletics was achieved on the streets of Milan yesterday when she won the Avon 10K Global road race in the highly impressive time of 30 minutes 59 seconds.
This marked not only a personal best for the Cork woman, it also saw her finish well clear of the two leading female distance runners of recent years. Kenya's Tegla Loroupe, the world marathon record holder, was some 21 seconds adrift, and Derartu Tulu of Ethiopia, who won her third World Cross Country title in Portugal just two months ago, was a similar distance behind in third place.
It was a most encouraging run for O'Sullivan in her build-up to the Sydney Olympics.
A little closer to home there was similar boost for Catherina McKiernan, who also won a 10K race in Liverpool in a time 34 minutes, one second - her first victory in her return from long-term injury.
For O'Sullivan the most satisfying aspect of her win will probably be the manner of her victory. Both Loroupe and Tulu attempted to kill off O'Sullivan's chances in the early stages with some determined front running. Indeed, Loroupe had opened a gap of around 30 metres at the half-way stage only for O'Sullivan to pull back the lead and then win with relative ease as the two Africans faded.
"I felt good the whole way and the strength was there at the finish, which was most important of all," said O'Sullivan afterwards.
O'Sullivan's time was just 20 seconds outside Liz McColgan's world best of 30:39 for a 10K road race, set in Orlando 11 years ago but it was the fastest ever by an Irish woman on either road or track, the previous national best being McKiernan's 31:08 set on the track five years back.
"It was pleasing to feel so strong," she added, "as all my training in recent weeks has been easy enough. But I've been feeling better in all the races I've run now since the start of the year."
For McKiernan, the comfort of victory was always going to be more important than time. Her comeback from an eight-week lay-off earlier in the year has been cautious but yesterday's result is a major indication that those troubles are behind her.
"The bounce was definitely back in my step and that felt good," she said. "This is not a fast course by any means but I really wasn't worried about the time. It's always pleasant to win and hopefully this will be a good stepping stone for the next couple of months." McKiernan now plans to run a half-marathon within the next few weeks as she continues to turn up the heat in her preparations for the marathon in Sydney.
Elsewhere, a number of Irish athletes were involved in the Road to Sydney meeting in Loughborough yesterday, with the most impressive result falling to Gareth Turnbull. He finished second in a quality 1,500 metres race won by Kenya's David Kisang in a time of 3:38.68 - just inches ahead of the Belfast athlete.
Other performances of note came from Kilkenny's Emily Maher, who finished third in the 100 metres in 11.72 seconds and Dublin's Maria Lynch, who ran a competitive 1,500 metre time of 4:22.60 when finishing sixth.
Milan 10K: 1 S O'Sullivan (Ireland) 30:59, 2 T Loroupe (Kenya) 31.20, 3 D Tulu (Ethiopia) 31.40, 4 H Sampio (Portugal) 32.22, A Balsamo (Italy) 32.47.
