February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Stephen McKinley
She’s back: former World Cross Country champion and Olympic silver medalist Sonia O’Sullivan will be in New York next month to compete in the New York Women’s Mini Marathon in Central Park, according to the New York Road Runners.
O’Sullivan, 32, has been making a stirring comeback after maternity leave. On June 8, she will tackle a field packed with some of the world’s best runners, including American stars Deena Drossin, Milena Glusac and Jen Rhines.
This will be the 30th anniversary of the original women’s only road race, which has $30,000 in prize money.
Since the birth of her second daughter, Sophie, last December, O’Sullivan has been on the return. She finished seventh in the World Cross Country Championship 4K race in Dublin, only three months after Sophie’s birth.
In the last five months O’Sullivan has won the 5-mile road race at Balmoral Castle (25:16); finished 7th at the Carlsbad 5000 (15:38) and 14th at the World Half-Marathon (1:10:04).
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“Sonia has quickly established herself again as one of the top runners in the world and with the fan support of the large Irish-American running community here in New York, she should feel right at home and be up at the front on June 8,” said Allan Steinfeld, president of the NYRR.
In 1998 at the World Cross Country Championship in Morocco, O’Sullivan scored the event’s only women’s double individual championship by winning the 8K race (25:39) and returning the next day to win the 4K race (12:20). In the 1990 Sydney Olympics, O’Sullivan won the 5,000 meters silver medal. O’Sullivan holds every Irish record at distances between 800 and 10,000 meters and is the reigning European Champion at 3000, 5000 and 10,000.