Sonia O'Sullivan admitted there was little she could do to stop the awesome performance of gold medal winner Paula Radcliffe in the 10000m at the European Championships in Munich on Tuesday night. The Cobh athlete, defending the title she won four years ago, could only watch in admiration as the English runner broke the European record almost a lap clear of O'Sullivan, who had to settle for the silver.
O'Sullivan had the consolation of setting a new Irish record, 30:47.59, a goal she had set herself before the event. Speaking to RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland, O'Sullivan admitted: "I said the other day that I wanted to put the Irish record a bit out of reach because you don't get too many chances to run 10,000m. I knew that being in a race with Paula it would be a fast race and I would have had every chance of running as fast as I possibly could. In the end it turned out that it probably didn't make any difference because I was out there running by myself anyway. I was just out there running to stop myself being lapped and being passed by anybody."
O'Sullivan, who now turns her attention to the defence of her 5,000m crown, also revealed her tactics were to keep on the tails of Radcliffe for as long as possible before gunning for home herself. However, that backfired as the English woman's stamina and strength saw her finish an enormous 300m ahead of O'Sullivan, who had 16 seconds .
She added: "I wasn't looking at the clock because she obviously had the plan of 'I'm going to run this race without looking at the clock the whole way', whereas I was just concentrating on her, so I don't if that was a good thing or a bad thing. It's a good thing I suppose if you're running slow, but if you're running very fast then you don't realise that these kilometres are being ran so quickly and before you know it you're battling to stay in the race."
The heats for the 5,000m, her preferred event, begin tomorrow.
Filed by Shane Murray
