For Cobh, the Sydney Olympics will always be synonymous with Sonia. Her sixth-place performance in the 10,000 metres was good enough for her home-town at the weekend, even if her thousands of supporters and friends in Cobh had dared to dream she just might bring home a gold as well as a silver medal.
The early-morning start to the race, Irish time, was no deterrent to people gathering around their television sets. In the Shealy household in Cobh, her uncle Terry and her aunts, Colette and Frances, gathered with friends as they had done so many times before to watch events unfold on television.
The champagne was on ice even before the start, and at the end of the race there were cheers from her family and the sound of popping corks as Sonia told the world she was happy coming into the race and would leave Sydney in a happy frame of mind. It was all so different from Atlanta four years earlier.
"It's been a great Olympics for her, we're so proud of her and we just can't wait to get her home. There's going to be a big celebration when she comes back to Cobh," her uncle Terry said.
The Lord Mayor of Cork, Mr P.J. Hourican, has nominated Sonia for the Freedom of the City award, and the people of Cobh will have an opportunity to vote for her in the near future in the Cobh Person of the Year award, for which she has been nominated by the Urban District Council. The likelihood is that Sonia will do a lap of honour at Croke Park next Saturday for charity prior to the Kerry/Galway replay in the All-Ireland final and that she will make her way to Cobh early next week.
Arrangements are already being made for a huge welcome home - once Sonia has had time to catch her breath.