Ireland's dominant distance runner of the past 20 years believes there's still gas in the tank and says she'll never retire.
SONIA O'Sullivan does not bristle. One senses she has too positive a character to let such negative vibes pierce her finely-honed exterior.
But she is uncomfortable. The Olympic silver medallist and double World Cross Country champion is in Edinb
urgh this weekend as manager-cum-coach of the Australian team competing in the 2008 IAAF World Cross Country Championships, the first time the event has been staged in Scotland since 1978.
The discomfort has nothing to do with the fact she hails from Cobh in County Cork yet now wears the Aussies' white, green and gold tracksuits. She did try to compete in the 2006 Commonwealth Games for Australia, where she spends every winter, but a hamstring injury ended those hopes, and she likens her managing Australia to Fabio Capello working with England; professional sport rises above such nationalistic loyalties.
No, O'Sullivan, 38, is shifting uneasily in her leather chair in Edinburgh's Balmoral Hotel because the word 'retirement' has just cropped up.
O'Sullivan first ran in the European Championships in 1990, first won gold in the world student games the following year in the 1500m, struck silver in the worlds in 1993 and then gold in the European Championships' 3000m in 1994. Gold medals, then, more or less rained down on the Irish icon over the next decade, from European and World Championships, indoor and outdoor, over distances from a mile to half-marathon, on track, road and hill around the world.
"And for the last two years people have been trying to 'retire' me," she said, forcing a laugh. "I have trouble with that 'retire' word. I was doing some road races last year, and was actually quite fit, but after I came back from Mombasa (she had been helping with an unsuccessful bid to take the 2011 World Championships to Australia] I couldn't get it together and never got myself going well enough to race well.
"I raced in what was supposedly my last road race in Ireland. I thought I was fit enough to run really well in that field, but I didn't run well at all. I don't know if it was the pressure of people saying this was my last race, but I wasn't focused on what I had to do running-wise.
"Then I tried to run a marathon in Berlin (last September] and thought if I got the qualifying time for the Olympics in Beijing that would be an option, and it would be my fifth Olympics, which would be a pretty big deal, but that didn't work out. I was injured, and so decided to get a foot problem I'd had for two years operated on, and try to enjoy running again.
"It took a while to get back, I tore my calf and I was hopeless back in Australia – I couldn't keep up with other runners!"
The other runners reducing O'Sullivan to such depths of frustration were not Sunday joggers, but included world champions Craig Mottram and Benita Johnson, who are competing for Australia tomorrow and in the green and gold in this summer's Olympic Games.
She may have been unsure where her career as a world-class athlete was heading, but no-one had said anything of the competitive streak which had burned inside O'Sullivan for as long as she can remember. She is an engaging person, with glinting eyes and a wide smile which relaxes you in an instant, and she seems content with life out of the elite spotlight.
O'Sullivan laughed. "I'm realistic enough to know that I can't compete at the top level right now, and probably not ever as good as I have. I can't run the last 400m in 60 seconds any more; I know that and I'm happy to accept that, but I'm not happy to stop running, stop training and stop trying hard – that's the difference.
"I don't want to go to the Olympics and through all the qualifying hurdles again; I've given up a lot of time away from my family, and I'm not committed enough to go through it all again now.
"But the hard thing is for other people to accept that I can compete at a lower level. I have friends who say: 'You were the best in the world, how can you run a fun run round the local park for your club and still want to win?' But I feel as good winning that as I would a world championship because your friends and family are watching, you get a nice bouquet of flowers and vouchers to the local restaurant and the same winning feeling.
"Okay, maybe it's not totally the same as winning the World Cross Country title or standing on an Olympic podium, but it's an achievement and you run to achieve."
And yet she continues to train, and improve her times, against elite training partners. Restaurant vouchers? Really?
She shrugged, then admitted: "I've started catching Craig again, I've got fitter and fitter, and I'm going to run the Boston Marathon in a month, but just for fun, to give my training a focus.
"I'm raising money for the Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind and when I said my target was to go under three hours Paddy Power (the Irish bookmaker] said they would donate a thousand euros for every minute under, which is a bit easier than going round all my friends and family asking for donations.
"It was all going nicely until an Irish paper said I was trying to qualify for the Olympics – I think Paddy Power suddenly got worried! But it's not about that for me. I will always go out there and try hard, and be dead at the end of it – that's what I'm like – and when the e-mail came back from Boston saying I was in, I felt brilliant going out to train the next morning.
"I ran New York a couple of years ago just because I was there and couldn't bear watching it, but that's the thing for me. People were talking of me being retired last year, but I'd be out running and see these runners I was passing not even going fast and thought 'hang on a second, I like to run, so why should someone tell me I have to retire?'
"You don't really retire from running because it's a lifestyle thing, and it's not something I think I will ever want to give away. I suppose people just want me to stand up and say I'm retired from international athletics, but you still want to compete, to travel, and if there was ever an opportunity to do something again I'd like the door to still be a little bit open."
That 'little bit open' is the key – she is happy, but retains that innate desire of top athletes, as runners in parks in Melbourne and London will no doubt attest. "We have this gravel track in Melbourne called 'The Tan'," she laughs. "It's a 3.8km path that goes around the Botanical Gardens – and everybody runs there, at all times. My challenge when I went back this year was to make sure I was never passed by anybody.
"I'd come home and think 'yes, another day done, and nobody's passed me'. I've been out for an easy run and some guy comes along, and he's two steps behind and you think 'right, I'll drop this guy ... now!' and he sticks there, and you go again. I've been glad to get off the track and he hasn't passed me.
"I had a similar one last year at my house in London. I had just come out the door to the path along the Thames, and this guy came storming past. I hadn't warmed up or anything, but I thought 'he can't be ahead of me', so I went after him, stayed behind for a bit and then thought 'right, here we go and I left him'."
It is a wonderful picture – O'Sullivan choosing her moment, pulling out and gleefully striding away, on a cycle path. She has others to think of now, with partner Nic Bideau, a renowned athletics coach, and daughters Ciara (8) and Sophie (6). They spend winter in Australia, and the summer back in the UK.
This weekend, she is with the athletes in Edinburgh University's halls of residence, but relived old memories in the Balmoral Hotel, where she used to finish seasons with the 'Balmoral Mile'.
"I wanted to come to Edinburgh this year, but I didn't just want to watch; I wanted to be involved in some way, so I was delighted to be given the opportunity to be the Australian team manager. And I think they probably appreciate having someone who wants to train with them, who knows what they need and how tough this world is, and knows we can beat African athletes, like myself and great Scots like Yvonne Murray did.
"It's going to be hard this weekend because I will want the team to do better than they probably can. It would be absolutely huge if we won a medal, but for the girls at least I feel the bronze is always up for grabs behind Kenya and Ethiopia – Ireland have won it twice, Australia did a couple of years ago, and America.
"The African nations are now a lot more organised and supported in athletics, and as well as their runners other countries like Bahrain, Qatar and Jordan are snapping up Kenyans or Tanzanians, and so instead of having about 20 African athletes you now have 50 or so in each field.
"But I remember in 1993, I was here at the Balmoral, when athletes started running about saying the Chinese had broken world records; TV reports from the Asian Games were saying they had run 29:30 for the 10,000m. I said 'no way'. I had to go and see it on the TV myself to believe it.
"That just made me more determined to train harder and run harder and beat them. The Chinese came and went – they didn't come out again in 1994 – but I had no fear of them and because of that I think I had no fear of anyone, so that helped me to become better than anyone else.
"It's difficult now, especially for the men, with so many good African runners, but you can let them dominate or challenge them. Everyone is vulnerable and there are times when they can be beaten – you have to be ready for that time. The rain and wind of Holyrood Park could make this weekend one of those times."
She added: "I've got over the uncertainty of the last two years, and am comfortable with my goals. I want to enjoy running and compete and help others at whatever level I can. Being given the chance to manage Australia this weekend is a great new door that has been opened for me and we'll see how that goes.
"I was disappointed to qualify for Australia for the Commonwealth Games two years ago, and not be able to run because of a hamstring, so I suppose this is a chance to make up for that. But I will compete for Ireland if I ever represent a country again. The European Cross Country is in Dublin in 2009, and if there was any chance at all to run I would, but that is a long way away – over a year still – so we'll wait and see."
O'Sullivan is a strong woman, in and out of competition, who attracted criticism from an Irish priest for having two children out of wedlock yet has been hailed as a 21st century role model for Irish women. Spending time in her company, it is easy to see why. She comes across as an eager, enthusiastic individual bursting with a zest for life, yet the determined, independent traits shine through.
It is heartening that she has not become a gnarled former champion, anguished at her slide from the elite of world athletics, but there is still something, in those twinkling Irish eyes perhaps, that suggests O'Sullivan should never be discounted, from anything.
The full article contains 2065 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
