ATHLETICS: Clearly things are so far going exactly to plan for Sonia O'Sullivan in this Olympic season. Winning yesterday's Great Manchester Run was significant for several reasons, none more than the beating of Ethiopia's Berhane Adere, the world 10,000-metre champion and probably O'Sullivan's main rival after the sudden decline of Gabriela Szabo.

At 34 O'Sullivan is proving that her finest years mightn't yet be behind her. Tactically she was at her best yesterday, sitting on Adere until the final hilly stretch of the 10-kilometre course, then delivering an unmatchable kick. Just like old times really.

Her time of 32 minutes 12 seconds was impressive given the course and conditions. Adere, last year's winner, chased hard and came home three seconds back, and there was real quality in third place too in Kenya's Margaret Okayo, winner of last month's London Marathon, who clocked 32:24.

Further indication of how dominant were the front runners was that Hayley Yelling was the best British finisher, in eighth place, some 90 seconds behind O'Sullivan. Tracey Morris, the British woman whose sensational breakthrough in the London Marathon qualified her for the Athens Olympics, was outclassed and finished 11th in 33:53.

Earlier this month Adere had adopted O'Sullivan's tactics in the Balmoral Road race, sitting on the Irish woman until the last few hundred metres. This time though O'Sullivan had the confidence to wait, and afterwards the sense of satisfaction was evident.

"It's a nice feeling to win a big race again against a field which included so many top-class runners," she said. "I felt good all the way and my plan was to wait until near the end to make my effort and that worked out very much as planned."

While Okayo set the early pace, O'Sullivan was visibly content to sit among the leaders. In fact the Kenyan threw in numerous surges but the pack, led by the tall figure of Adere, always remained within a few strides of her.

At the 3km mark Okayo's surge reduced the chief challengers to just three, with Adere and O'Sullivan full of running on her shadow. With the finish at the top of a steep hill it was clear O'Sullivan planned to wait as long as possible before making her effort.

"I didn't want to go at the bottom of the hill in case I didn't reach the top in front, and so decided to wait," she added. So with about 800 metres remaining, Adere made her big move, springing up the hill, but was closely followed by O'Sullivan.

Halfway up though the lead exchanged hands for the last time, and O'Sullivan blasted into the lead with brilliant conviction.

Running almost as well in the men's race was another Cork runner, Cathal Lombard, who took third in a similarly stacked race, to further underline his arrival as a world-class athlete.

The winner here was Australia's Craig Mottram, still somewhat better-known on these shores as O'Sullivan's training partner but now clearly one of the leading distance men in the world. He moved to the front at 3km and posted 27:55, but Lombard was well content with his 28:07. The emerging Zersenay Tadesse of Eritrea took second.

For O'Sullivan, these past few weeks will have restored much of her old confidence. Her 14:58.53 win over 5,000 metres on the track in California on April 30th remains the fastest in the world this season, and her recent mile victory in Oxford shows she hasn't lost any of her speed.

There was talk she'd run the 5,000 metres at the Grand Prix II meeting in Hengelo on this day week, but that was quickly dismissed: "No, I have yet to finalise my track programme for the summer and will do that in the next few days," she added.

What is certain is that Manchester marked her last road race before Athens.

Back home, there was a superb performance at Saturday's Leinster Schools Championships when 17-year-old Colin Costello smashed the 34-year-old senior record for 1,500 metres, winning a thrilling race in 3 minutes 47.5 seconds. The Gormanston student just got the better of Danny Darcy from Carlow, who was also inside the old record with 3:47.8.

Tom Gregan had set the old mark, 3:50.1, in 1970 before going to Villanova University on a scholarship. The times by Costello and Darcy were inside the qualifying standard (3:48.0) for the World Junior Championships to be held in Italy in mid-July.

Costello was a double medallist at the European Youth Olympics last year. His record victory on Saturday was all the more meritorious in that he had earlier won the 800 metres in a fast 1:53.4.