Women's 5,000 metres It was one more step into the familiar, one more shivering of nerves and then one more blast of that old lethal kick, and Sonia O'Sullivan was into another Olympic final.

With that the dream is still alive. Only just, but that's plenty good for now.

Excuse us so while we catch our breath. It's after midnight in Athens and O'Sullivan has just swept past the finishing line of her 5,000-metre heat. Her time, 14 minutes 59.61 seconds. Seventh place. All she needed for her ticket to next Monday night's final. In case you need any reminding it will be her fourth Olympic final of the past 12 years. Some record.

It was a race too that sparked 1,000 thoughts and ended with one sharp bolt of relief. None more visible than on the face of O'Sullivan. What it came down to more than anything else was experience, the old ally of the tried and tested Olympians. Something that the 34-year-old O'Sullivan could sell stocks in. Over the 12.5 laps she ran to her own rhythm, taking the lead after just a lap and a half in order to better her chances of qualifying as one of the five fastest losers. It was a tactic that worked a treat.

"I couldn't believe they started so slowly," she said. "It was stupid when they knew what needed to be done. I went to the front to try and take it on. And I'm not the best at that.

"But I suppose that was plan B. But I thought anything under 15 minutes would qualify. But I wanted to be in the final. The family are coming out tomorrow night, so at least they have something to look forward to now."

At the finish then there was no calculation required. The top five in each heat go through, and the five fastest losers across the two. The first heat was won in 15:00.66 - it was clear she was in once she bettered that time. In the end she'd run her second fastest 5,000m of the season, but easily her bravest. Only the sixth-place finisher in her heat, Margaret Maury of France, qualified as a better fastest loser.

There was that crucial move though just past the half way mark when the young Turk Elvan Abeylegesse, the new master of this event, first showed her hand. So with six laps to go O'Sullivan was back in seventh.

You could take all her experiences of Barcelona and Atlanta and Sydney and distil them into that moment. All the thoughts of what could go right and wrong. She was in danger of being dropped, facing the last corner of her career.

So she took stock, and pushed her body along as if driven solely by the motor of the heart. Her legs were merely carriers. Check the clock, relax, concentrate - right here, right now. Every muscle protesting, twitching, crying.

In the end she had a safety barrier. The Ethiopian Meseret Defar took the win in 14:52.39 - and led home a bunch of five more runners in quick succession. Crucially though Sonia never stopped running hard, and if anything closed on the leaders over the final circuit.

All the big guns passed through without problems, with Abeylegesse taking second in 14:54.80, and Britain's Jo Pavey a surprise third in 14:55.45. But O'Sullivan had done the work and got her just reward.

The first heat was won by another Ethiopian, Tirunish Dibaba, a race where the other Irish hope, Maria McCambridge, never found the rhythm she needed. Dropping back some nine laps from home, McCambridge ended up 15th in 15:57.42.

From early evening the Irish tricolours had started to sprout, fluttered only by hand in the stillness of the stadium.

The stadium was emptying by the time O'Sullivan hit the track but the chants of the Irish rose off into the night.

When called into duty to raise some noise for Adrian O'Dwyer in the high jump their purpose was soon proving worthless.

At aged 20 O'Dwyer had come to Athens for a lesson in world-class high jumping. It was a difficult one. He failed in all three attempts at his opening heat, a mediocre 2.10 metres. It made for a long, lonely wait for his competition to finish. So he sat atop a plastic seat with his arms around his legs and didn't move for over an hour. Tonight something was wrong. It was the air he breathed.

5,000m (Heat 2) first seven: 1 M Defar (Eth) 14:52.39; 2 E Abeylegesse (Tur) 14:54.80; 3 J Pavey (Gbr) 14:55.45; 4 I Ochichi (Ken) 14:55.69; 5 H Xing (Chn) 14:56.01; 6 M Maury (Fra) 14: 56.79; 7 S O'Sullivan (Irl) 14:59.61.