Sports Digest/ATHLETICS: Less than 10 minutes after breaking the world marathon record in Berlin yesterday, Ethiopia's Haile Gebrselassie was handed a cell phone - it was Paul Tergat calling from Kenya to offer his congratulations, writes Ian O'Riordan.
"I'm sorry," Gebrselassie told his great rival and long-time friend after winning in two hours four minutes 26 seconds, shattering by 29 seconds Tergat's record set on the same course in 2003. Tergat, who was pipped for the gold medal in the 1996 and 2000 Olympics by Gebrselassie in two classic 10,000 metres battles, would have none of it, telling Gebrselassie he was delighted for him.
However, for one athlete, Sonia O'Sullivan, the dream is over, and any last hope of her ending her glorious career at next year's Beijing Olympics vanished on the German streets when she dropped out of Berlin's famous marathon.
O'Sullivan had hoped to qualify for her fifth Olympic Games by running a time of 2:37 but things did not work out as expected for the Cork athlete, who gave it everything early on, but was forced to abandon her hopes and plans at 25 kilometres, or 16 miles, not long after the halfway stage. At that point the calf muscle injury which she damaged in training a few weeks back came back to haunt her and she simply could not continue.
There was some compensation for the Irish challenge in that Rosemary Ryan of Limerick ran an excellent debut time of 2:39.31 when finishing 14th and she will now feel that she can achieve the 2:37 standard before next summer and so qualify for her second Olympics. Geta Wami of Ethiopia successfully defended her women's title as she came home a good winner in 2:23.14.
The race, naturally, belonged to Gebrselassie who was on world record schedule all the way and after passing halfway in 1:02.29 picked up the pace to come home in front of massive crowds at the Brandenburg Gate, to win by more than two minutes from Abek Kirui of Kenya, in 2:06.51.
Elsewhere, O'Sullivan's great rival, Paula Radcliffe, suffered defeat in her comeback race in the Great North Run in Newcastle when she finished 56 seconds behind the surprise winner, Kara Goucher, who set an American record in 66 minutes 57 seconds.
SHOW JUMPING: Ireland followed up their second placing in Friday's FEI Nations' Cup with victory in yesterday's Grand Prix in Zagreb, writes Margie Mcloone. Niall Talbot and Tequi d'I CH, who didn't jump a second time in the team event, came out on top in the individual class, the mare stopping the clock in 43.99 seconds. Second place went to Germany's Kathrin Muller and Marius (45.35) with Denis Lynch taking third place for Ireland with Upsilon d'Ocpuier (46.79).
At the FEI World Breeding show jumping championships at Lanaken in Belgium, Co Antrim's Trevor Bartlett finished fourth in the five-year-old final on Colgan Cruise while Linda Courtney rode H Two into sixth place in the six-year-old class.
Greg Broderick extended his lead in the Bloxham Grand Prix League when winning at Mullingar on Pikolino.
SAILING: Ireland's sole representative on the professional racing circuit of the Transpac 52 has ended following yesterday's final event of the season in Sardinia, writes David Branigan. Defending title-holder Eamon Conneely with skipper Ian Walker on Patches finished second to Russell Coutts on Torbjorn Tornqvists Artemis at the Rolex Global Championships.
MOTOR SPORT: Sebastien Loeb showed all the skill that has won him three World Championships with a dominant drive to victory on the weekend's Murphy Construction-sponsored International Cork 20 Rally, writes Brian Foley. Loeb's Citroen team mate Dani Sordo (Spain) was second in a Citroen Xsara WRC, trailing the winner by Two minutes 22.1 seconds.
In the battle for the Global Irish Tarmac Championship, the title went to third-placed Mark Higgins.
CYCLING: Italian rider Paolo Bettini became only the fifth rider in history to defend his world champion's rainbow jersey yesterday, outsprinting Alexandr Kolobnev (Russian Federation), Stefan Schumacher (Germany), Frank Schleck (Luxembourg) and Cadel Evans (Australia) at the end of the 267.4 kilometre race.
Philip Deignan withdrew one lap from the end as Daniel Martin's 26th place in Saturday's under-23 Championship was the best result of the Irish campaign.
Siobhan Dervan was the only Irish entrant in Saturday's women's event and placed 67th behind Italian Marta Bastianelli.
