Athletics CommentIan O'Riordan believes that no one in Ireland with a true athletics heart would deny Sonia O'Sullivan her chance to run in Melbourne

In sport like in life there are plenty of people who like to kiss you when you're up and kick you when you're down. In athletics they don't talk about only being as good as your last race for nothing. Nobody knows this better than Sonia O'Sullivan.

So our Greatest-of-all-Time has been selected to run for Australia in the Commonwealth Games. Predictably this has divided opinions on whether O'Sullivan is right or wrong in trading the green vest of Ireland for the green vest of Australia, even if it is a once off. Certain members of the Commonwealth organisers are still wondering if this should be allowed to happen and are reportedly seeking clarification on her recent clearance to run for Australia.

Yet right now O'Sullivan remains intent on lining up for the final of the 5,000 metres, set for Melbourne's revamped Cricket Ground on the morning of March 24th. She worked hard to qualify in last Saturday's trials, finishing second to Eloise Wellings.

Yesterday she was named among the record 107-strong Australian athletics team, joined in the 5,000 metres by Wellings and Sarah Jamieson. O'Sullivan knows she'll need to lower her time significantly if she's to challenge for a medal. Kenya are only sending one decent athlete, Isabella Ochichi, and after that O'Sullivan will probably be as competitive as anyone. Even at aged 36.

So what will we do if she comes into the homestretch with that medal in sight, her arms and legs pumping as hard as anything we've seen during her 16-year career in world athletics? Will we shake our heads and jeer, the same way we do with the English soccer team despite the constant talk of "we" and "us" when it comes to Manchester United and Liverpool? And why is she even running? Is she not finished? At times like this it seems like we've kicked her so many times when she's down that we've forgotten how much we kissed her when she was up.

First of all, O'Sullivan has in no way turned her back on Ireland. When she was cleared to run last month, the first thing she said was that she'd never run for Australia against Ireland. And if everything goes to plan she'll be in Gothenburg next August for the European Championships, as hungry as she's ever been to win one more medal in the green vest of Ireland.

When O'Sullivan first mentioned the idea of running for Australia over two years ago she talked about it being the same as Roy Keane playing for Manchester United in an English FA Cup final, and then playing for Ireland at Lansdowne Road the following Wednesday. And in reality, the Commonwealth Games are more like a club event than a true international event. The IAAF don't recognise them under their competition rules, and dozens of Irish athletes have already competed in the Commonwealth Games for Northern Ireland. Her motivation to run is simple - she still loves to compete. The Games are being staged within a few hundred yards of the Melbourne home she shares with her Australian partner Nic Bideau and their two daughters Ciara and Sophie.

Nor has she got her Australian passport by default. Both Nic and her daughters hold one, and on Australian Day of last month she received her new citizenship papers from the Victorian Governor - a certain John Landy. Some people might remember Landy as the man who should have run the first sub-four minute mile. Anyway, Landy has a true athletics heart and he was the first person to wish O'Sullivan good luck in the Commonwealth Games.

No one in Ireland with a true athletics heart would deny O'Sullivan her chance to run in Melbourne either. She's given more to Irish athletics than anyone could have asked - like those 16 major championship finals on the track. Remember when she ran the European 3,000m final in Split in 1990 and we glowed at the prospect of so many years' service at the top of her sport? Did we still expect five Olympic finals in four different Games? The innocent fourth in Barcelona, the torment in Atlanta, the redemption in Sydney before that most graceful exit in Athens. Did we expect her five World Championship finals? Fourth and then silver from the Chinese supremacy of Stuttgart, that golden moment in Gothenburg, and the harder times of Athens 1997 and Paris 2003.

Did we expect her five European championship medals? Gold in Helsinki, gold twice in Budapest, and silver twice in Munich. And are we forgetting her World Cross Country double in 1998, the event she ran six times in all and twice helped Ireland to team silver medals? If anyone deserves to finish out their career the way they want then she does. Think about it. Our Greatest-of-all-Time will be greater still if she manages to do something special at the Commonwealth Games. But then nobody knows this better than Sonia O'Sullivan.