GIRL WHO; WAS BORN TO RUN; Sonia kept losing but still wanted to be the best in the world . . at 14.Everyone in town knows when Sonia O'Sullivan Sonia O'Sullivan (born November 28, 1969) is an Irish runner from Cobh, County Cork. She was one of the leading female 5000 m runners for most of the 1990s and early 2000s. Her crowning achievement was a Gold medal at the 1995 World Athletics Championships. has come home. The top athlete who is based in London and spends her life globetrotting from track to track always comes back to see her family in Ireland. But she rarely heads home to rest. The locals are used to the sight of her pounding the pavements in all weather. She trains in the morning and late in the evening, either on the roads or at her old school. The star has often gone unnoticed during her preparations for the 5,000 and 1,500 metres in Atlanta - after all, she's become a familiar sight to locals over the last ten years. She may be a millionaire earning pounds 500,000 a year from her running and endorsements, but she's still the Sonia they've always known. School friends tell fond stories of the girl with the long legs who had a love affair with running. Of how she chose to run rather than go to a disco, or how she turned potato picking during the school holidays into a training session. "The others would be stopping to rest when the tractor had to go off to do something else, but not Sonia," said neighbour Irene O'Rourke. "She would take the opportunity to run around the field a few times!" People soon stopped offering her lifts when they discovered her running in the rain or snow. Nobody thought she was mad - they just accepted Sonia had a goal - to be number one, as her former coach Sean Kennedy Sean Kennedy can refer to:
She was just 14 and showing little in the way of athletic promise when he took her under his wing. She had failed to win even the B grade of the East Cork cross country championship that year, but Sean still felt she had potential. And he knew she was destined des·tine tr.v. des·tined, des·tin·ing, des·tines 1. To determine beforehand; preordain: a foolish scheme destined to fail; a film destined to become a classic. 2. for great things the day she announced that she wanted to be the best in the world. "I knew then she had what it took," said factory supervisor Sean. She was regularly being beaten by her colleagues in the Ballymore-Cobh Athletics Club in sprint races a foot race at the highest running speed; - usually limited to distances under a quarter of a mile. See also: Sprint , but at 16 she changed to cross country running. Suddenly the girl from Cobh in Co Cork had found her forte An application development system for enterprise client/server environments from Sun. It was folded into the Sun Studio compiler and tool suite, which is based on the open source Netbeans IDE. . When she began to win races, her training intensified. Coach Sean remembers this caused a problem. He would put her through her usual training routine and the next day discover she was tired. "She would do too much," he said. "The problem was to get her to stop. I would talk to her about it then find she had been running up hills or doing steps." Her present manager Kim McDonald, also her coach and boyfriend, found much the same. She was pushing hard in every race instead of choosing her moment. At 17, everyone could see Sonia was destined to be a star. In the space of two weeks she won three major titles - schools cross country champion, and winner of the All Ireland As an attributive, All Ireland emphasises the entire island of Ireland, as opposed to either the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland. In Irish Republicanism, the expression 32-county is often used instead: 32 as distinct from the 26 counties of the Republic and the remaining 6 junior and senior events. She had not spent all her time training though, carefully splitting up her days to devote enough time to both study and training. Sonia showed the same grit and determination in her school work as she did in the field, gaining four As and one B plus in her exams. Offers from American universities American University, at Washington, D.C.; United Methodist; founded by Bishop J. F. Hurst, chartered 1893, opened in 1914. It was at first a graduate school; an undergraduate college was opened in 1925. Programs provide for student research at many government institutions. came flooding in and after a lot of thought Sonia plumped for Villanova. The first year away was difficult for the small town girl, and she even wondered if she would return for a second year. But she decided to go through with it all, and qualified as an accountant three years ago. Her family are very proud of her achievements on and off the track. The eldest of three, 26-year-old Sonia has her mother's long legs and ready smile but she is very much daddy's girl. Father John, a factory fitter, travels to watch her race whenever he can. He doesn't mind being known as Sonia's father, but her mother Mary is Mary I, 1516–58, queen of England Mary I (Mary Tudor), 1516–58, queen of England (1553–58), daughter of Henry VIII and Katharine of Aragón. a more private person and the family usually keep to themselves. Just like Sonia, they are unassuming and matter of fact. Brother Tony, 23, admits he can get fed up with the hype. "Sometimes I deny I'm related to her at all," he laughed. And while he didn't mind being the only member of the family not in Atlanta, he was thrilled when Aer Lingus Aer Lingus is Ireland's national airline. Based in Dublin, it operates 41 Airbus aircraft serving Europe, Africa, North America and the Middle East. The airline is 28% owned by the Irish government; it was floated on the Dublin and London Stock Exchanges on 2 October 2006, offered to fly him there. The chance to go to the Games also completed a trans-Atlantic family reunion Often an annual event, a family reunion takes place on a specified day each year for the purpose of keeping an extended family closer together. Some reunions may be held less often. for the O'Sullivans. Sonia's mum and dad had paid the pounds 1,200 airfare air·fare n. Fare for travel by aircraft. Noun 1. airfare - the fare charged for traveling by airplane fare, transportation - the sum charged for riding in a public conveyance to watch their daughter run. Sister Gillian flew in from her Brisbane home. Sonia says her parents' presence is very important to her. She was thrilled to pick them out among the thousands in the stadium at Friday's 5,000m heats. Sonia was Ireland's biggest hope before the Games, but the pressure on her lifted when swimmer Michelle Smith
Michelle Smith (born December 16, 1969 in Rathcoole, County Dublin), now more commonly referred to by her married name, Michelle de Bruin, is an Irish former swimmer. won gold. While the rest of the country could think of nobody but Michelle, Cobh waited patiently for the athletics to start. Few even speak of 1992 in Barcelona, when on-form Sonia was destroyed by Chinese runners. But after the town got over the disappointment, they cheered Sonia on to victory in the World Championships. As her uncle Terry Shealy said after the pain in Spain: "We haven't heard the last of her." Everyone in Cobh will vouch for vouch for verb 1. guarantee, back, certify, answer for, swear to, stick up for (informal) stand witness, give assurance of, asseverate, go bail for verb 2. that. |
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