Sonia O'Sullivan was alone with her thoughts for much of the day yesterday as she contemplated the newest challenge of her eventful career in the final of the world 1500 metres championship in Athens this afternoon.

After fulfilling a contractual obligation to meet with print media personnel last Friday, she went away to make ready for the task of collecting one of the most coveted titles of the championship and the prize of £40,000 which goes with it.

She has been at pains to keep her mood upbeat, choosing to stress the positive and ignore the occasional signs of distress which have surfaced since she set down here last Thursday.

The scenario is not wholly dissimilar to that which played on the emotions of the nation in Atlanta last summer when the woman whom many had regarded as impervious to pressure was shown to be somewhat less than that.

Now, as then, she has chosen, controversially, to absent herself from the Irish team's official headquarters, preferring to stay elsewhere in this hot, bustling city. This time there are no suggestions of illness and the point was vividly illustrated in her composure after her win in the heats on Saturday and again, when she finished fourth in Sunday's semi-final.

That was the reassuring evidence to encourage belief that the Irish woman, who seemed out of sorts to the point of disillusionment only a matter of weeks ago, was in the process of putting together a remarkable recovery.

"Sonia's got it right in her head again," said her friend and confidante, Frank O'Mara. "And in that frame of mind, nobody is gong to beat her."

Lurking in the background, however, is the suspicion, widely held, that the original problem was more psychological than physical. The manner in which she demoralised the opposition by dictating the tactics and, to some degree, the tempo of her race on Saturday suggested that she had at last exorcised the self doubt which turned a seemingly-unbeatable athlete into a highly vulnerable one in Atlanta.

That feeling persisted for no more than 24 hours, however, for in the semi-finals she appeared to be in trouble once more in her attempt to stay fully focused and alert to everything happening around her.

Ominously, she lost ground after being left at the start, and that was the prelude to an exercise in which she was having to work exceptionally hard to cover the breaks materialising ahead of her.

Later, she would attribute that to the finely-honed competitive edge of the race and that was, to some extent, plausible. Yet the memory of those last 60 seconds of Sunday's race, when she appeared to be unsure of her priorities, is the biggest cloud on her horizon going into her most critical examination since Atlanta.

On the face of it, she will never have a better chance of winning a major 1500 metres title. Gone from the equation is Kelly Holmes who, form suggested, had merely to present herself on the starting line in good shape to claim the championship. In the event, she failed to do that and departed prematurely from the heats.

Gone too, is Svetlana Masterkova, the double gold medallist in Atlanta who, in spite of her indifferent form in the early months of the season, was still perceived as the one they all had to beat. Now, with heavy bandaging on her damaged ankle, her world is, temporarily, in ruin.

That should ease O'Sullivan's task, but she does not subscribe to the theory that it has devalued the championship. "It's not as if they weren't here," she said. "They had their chance and were unable to take it. That happens in all championships - it's just one of the hazards of the business.

"As far as I'm concerned, it's not going to make that much difference to me. There are still some very good athletes left in the race, people like Olga Neiyubova and Carla Sacramento, and if I beat them, I'll deserve to be champion.

"People keep harping back to what happened in the Sheffield meet and how I was run out of the race. All I can say now is that I made a mistake in going there but that was only obvious in hindsight. Sometimes you feel you have to race to stay sharp, whereas in reality you would be better to stay at home. I now know that I should never have run in Sheffield.".

On the question of tactics, she said: "I've no plans to take it out if the pace is too slow. I'll just strive to be competitive in all situations and respond to any situation I find. I think I can win the race, irrespective of whether it's slow or fast."

Nor is the weather upsetting her unduly. In spite of temperatures soaring into the 90s, she said that it did not trouble her in either of her races, adding that at one point she saw fit to put on the top of a tracksuit during her warm-up for the semi-finals.

O'Sullivan's manager and former coach, Kim McDonald, agrees with her assessment that Neiyubova and Sacramento are the biggest threats in a field of 12. "I no longer see Sonia on a daily basis and therefore have no idea of knowing what kind of shape she's in," he said.

"But her confidence seems to be on the rise again.

"With the field as it is, she could win the final by 20 metres on her 1995 form. I don't think she's reached that yet but, hopefully, she's sufficiently recovered to be able to shake off Neiyubova and Sacramento from the final bend."

Significantly, neither O'Sullivan nor her old mentor referred to the credentials of the young Ethiopian, Kutre Dulecha, a former world junior champion. At 19, hers is, almost certainly, a golden future, but in spite of unquestioned pace she scarcely possesses the maturity to handle championship competition at this level.

Neiyubova, of course, finished behind O'Sullivan in the heats, but it would be unwise to read too much into that situation now, when, probably for the first time in the championship, it will be a matter of feet to the floor.

With Holmes out, the American Regina Jacobs is the only one in the field to have broken four minutes four seconds for the distance this season, and this suggests that the pace is unlikely to be unduly severe in the opening stages.

Just how fast they go over the first 800 metres will depend to a large measure on the willingness of the Swede, Malin Ewerlof to take it out. In the past, she has not been unresponsive in these kind of situations and with some big "kickers" in the field, she will be aiming to make it as true a race as possible.

At the highest point in her career to date, in 1995, O'Sullivan had the kind of finishing speed which enabled her to win from almost any range on the last lap. That kind of equipment is no longer readily available to her, at least not just yet, and in that situation it is imperative that she is sufficiently well placed to follow any or every break on the last lap.

Winning the biggest battle of her career is now perhaps, more a question of mind than matter. And for all the doubts born of her display on Sunday, the hope is that she is sufficiently attuned to go and do it in style.