Ireland's Olympic silver medallist Sonia O'Sullivan comfortably won the second heat of the 3000 metres at the World Indoor Championships in Lisbon this morning. In what was her first indoor event for four years since she won silver at this tournament in Paris, she ran in a time of 8:55.79, a whole six seconds quicker than the fastest time in the first heat. O'Sullivan was up against her old foe Gabriele Szabo, who is the defending champion in this event and the Romanian came in a close second - .05 seconds behind O'Sullivan. Russian Olga Yegorova came in third.
O'Sullivan will now take part in the final tomorrow afternoon at 5:20pm Irish time but what is surprising is that she has declared she will contest the 1500m heats earlier in the day, just under two hours before she is due to run in the 3000m final. O'Sullivan revealed she had planned to do this last Tuesday night with her coach and feels that her quest for double gold is not impossible.
Meanwhile, in the men's 3000m heat, Ireland's Mark Carroll, who is the European Indoor Champion, came 7th but scrapes through to the final as the fastest loser from the two heats. His final gets underway on Sunday afternoon at 3:35pm Irish time. You can hear both races live on RTÉ Radio One.
Meanwhile, there are three other Irish athletes in action today at the championships - Peter Coughlan finished third in his 60m Hurdles heat and will run in the semi-finals later today. Karen Shinkins will run in the 400m heats and Daniel Caulfield in the first round of the 800m.
Filed by Amanda Fennelly
