Sonia O'Sullivan was keeping a low profile in her approach to a critical appointment in Budapest this evening when her performance in the final of the European 10,000 metres championship, may prove as significant as anything in her turbulent career.

O'Sullivan checked in briefly at the Irish team hotel yesterday morning, collected her race number and informed team manager, Paddy Marley that she would see him at the track this evening.

Inquiries at one of the city's most expensive hotels where the plush setting contrasts sharply with the quarters of the remainder of the squad, revealed that she hadn't returned there by the early afternoon.

That she should seek to avoid the media was not wholly surprising for these are uncertain days for the woman, once regarded as invincible but now prone to all the tribulations of lesser athletes.

Still damaged psychologically, it seems, by the trauma of Atlanta two years ago, she ventures into her first 10,000 metres race from an unnerving background. Only twice in 10 track races this season, has she avoided defeat. And in each instance, victory was achieved on home terrain.

If championship fulfilment has, on occasions, been attained in even more improbable circumstances by other athletes, it is not the kind of preparation which fires her supporters with confidence. More importantly, there have been races this summer in which, it seemed, she was not fully focused.

Typical was her defeat by Paula Radcliffe in a low key 3,000 metres race at Sheffield when she dropped off a modest pace at an early stage and was eventually beaten by the English runner by the length of the finishing straight.

Later, she explained that she had been distracted, begging the question that if she couldn't retain her concentration for seven and a half laps, what chance had she of staying alert for the 25 circuits of this evening's race.

It reminded of a chastening occasion in the finals of the 1996 Grand Prix series in Milan when in her first serious race since her ill-fated Olympic challenge two months earlier, she competed in the 5,000 metres.

Her plan of campaign was to run in the shadow of Cathrina McKiernan in the early stages but she would later confess that even before the 1,200 metre mark had been reached, she couldn't see the number on McKiernan's back.

That was a graphic illustration of the baggage she would continue to carry for the next two years and which would eventually reduce her to the realms of the ordinary. The exception was her double victory in the world cross country championship earlier in the year and it is largely on the evidence of those 24 hours of glory, that aspirations of heroics in Budapest are based.

It is, perhaps, an encouraging augury that Paula Radcliffe, perceived as one of the more realistic contenders for gold in this evening's final, finished some way behind her in the longer of those two races in Marrakesh.

That victory in Sheffield went some way towards re-establishing Radcliffe's self belief but judged on her comments yesterday, she is not being lured into a false sense of security.

"I think it's fairly obvious from the way Sonia has run her 1,500 and some of her 3,000 metres races this season, that the European 10,000 metres championship was always her real target," she said.

"It's not been one of her best summers but none of the other girls are writing her off. Depending on how the race develops, she can still be very dangerous."

Radcliffe, whose career hasn't always substantiated the promise she showed when winning the world junior cross country championship at Boston six years ago, is currently in the best form of her career.

That is a product primarily, of her decision to train at altitude in the French Pyrenees where she has recently bought a house and intends to live for six months of the year. The benefits of the move were reaped early when she fully extended Fernanda Ribeiro in the fastest 10,000 metres of the season in Lisbon and now, encouraged by that run, she believes that she is within reach of her biggest success.

Julia Vaquero of Spain is another with a genuine pedigree and the O'Sullivan camp is known to be worried by the presence of Alia Zhilyayeya, a 29-year-old Russian, who has suddenly resurfaced after a protracted absence from international competition.

Yet, inevitably, it is Ribeiro, a fierce competitor even on those occasions when she is clearly not on song, who dominates the field. Never were those competitive qualities seen to better effect than in Atlanta when she saw off Wang Junxia of China in the 10,000 metres final.

This summer, there have been reports of the Portuguese athlete struggling in training but that's not a line her opponents will buy too readily after some dramatic recoveries from similarly reported situations in the past.

Physically, O'Sullivan is sufficiently well conditioned to be in with a real chance of adding this title to the 3,000 metres championship she won in Helsinki three years ago.

Her decline in the intervening period, is rooted almost certainly, in the mental scars of Atlanta and now yet again, they threaten her hopes of a third major championship.

To overcome them, she must be prepared to answer pertinent questions of the inner self at stages of the race when the proximity of the 5,000 metres championship on Friday morning, may conceivably, occasion a crisis of priorities.

The hope is that when those moments of crisis materialise as, assuredly they will, she will be sufficiently strong to stay with the leaders until such time as she is in position to bring her superior pace to bear on the finish.