Athletics: O'Sullivan takes short cut back to long distance

Irish icon returns to World Cross-Country action on Sunday soon after giving birth

What do you do when you've had a baby? Rest sounds like a good option, generally speaking. But if you are an international athlete, other ideas swiftly emerge, all of them having to do with exertion. It seems to go with the territory.

This weekend in Dublin, just 13 weeks after giving birth to Sophie, her second daughter, Sonia O'Sullivan will compete in the 30th IAAF World Cross-Country Championships.

The idea of being in shape to compete in a world level event so soon after producing a child might seem extreme, but to this 32-year-old product of Cobh's wide open spaces – spaces which saw Roy Keane emerge as a world talent in football – it is a familiar one.

Three years ago O'Sullivan produced a world-class performance to finish fourth in the Great North Run with a half-marathon time of 70min 05sec having had her first daughter, Ciara, less than three months earlier. She had resumed training 10 days after the birth.

So what she will be doing when she toes the line at the Leopardstown racecourse for the women's short-course race on Sunday afternoon will feel quite comfortable, particularly following her performance in the Irish trials two weeks ago when she darted away from the field in her own classic fashion to win with ease.

"I felt really good out there," she said. "I was nervous beforehand – it was like starting all over again."

Genuinely having to start all over again would represent a monumental task for a woman who is by some distance Ireland's most bemedalled sporting figure of all time.

Earlier this week, RTE screened a show dedicated to 40 years of Irish sport, and – as you might expect – O'Sullivan featured heavily, with her most recent athletic achievement of becoming the first Irishwoman to win an Olympic medal with the silver she picked up in the Sydney 5,000 metres getting the most attention.

O'Sullivan's uninhibited sprint down the finishing straight on the shoulder of the eventual winner, Gabriela Szabo of Romania, was one of the most stirring spectacles of a Games which provided numerous unforgettable track finishes.

On that occasion she had to give second best. But O'Sullivan has earned a special esteem among the Irish public by demonstrating at regular intervals that she is a winner, albeit one with a career that has never progressed in straight lines.

"She's regarded as a national treasure," said RTE radio's respected commentator Greg Allen. "And she's much loved by the media because there's nothing boring about her life. Since 1996, it's been like a soap opera."

Even before 1996, when she arrived at the Atlanta Olympics as one of the favourites in both the 5,000 and 1500 metres and departed with nothing but tears and recrimination, she has somehow found herself involved in drama or controversy.

At the 1992 Olympics, she led the 3,000 metres into the last lap, only to see three runners come past her, the last – Angela Chalmers of Canada – agonisingly close to the line. A year later she produced a gold medal performance in the Stuttgart World Championships only to lose out to three Chinese runners.

In 1994 and 1995 she finally earned fitting reward for her abilities with European and world titles, but Atlanta proved to be a traumatic experience for her as she dropped out of the 5,000m final with just a few laps gone and then failed to qualify from her 1500m heat.

O'Sullivan was distraught; the Irish media no less so. But even though she was subsequently announced to have been suffering from "a urinary tract infection", no convincing explanation has been proferred for her sudden dip in form. Rumours, however, have abounded, some about her private life.

What was undeniable was the fact that she ended the year as an item with Nick Bideau, an Australian journalist-turned-coach who had undergone a painful public split with the 400 metres runner Cathy Freeman.

But back in Ireland, the media did not make such a big deal of O'Sullivan's new relationship with the man who is now the father of her children. And she was taken aback by the volume of letters and faxes of support she received after her Atlanta disappointments.

"That probably helped me a lot in communicating with the Irish people," she said from her apartment in Teddington yesterday as she prepared to set off for Dublin while her husband employed himself keeping Ciara and Sophie occupied.

"Before I always kept a bit of distance between myself and people because it felt as if they were going to invade my space. But now I've realised that they really do care about me and want me to do well. I spend a lot more time now writing autographs and answering letters."

Although the organisers of this weekend's event stress that the championships merit attention for the breadth of their quality, there is no disguising their relief that Ireland's highest-profile athlete has declared herself ready to play a part in a race that should have taken place in the Irish capital last year but was deferred because of concerns over foot-and-mouth disease.

"Having Sonia take part this year has been fairly critical in raising the profile of the event," said the Dublin media director, Liam Hennessy. "It's been a huge boost."

For O'Sullivan, too, the race promises to be of interest, although realistically a place in the top 15 will be an achievement.