SONIA O'SULLIVAN'S long build up to the Atlanta Olympics moves on to Moscow tonight when the world 5,000 metres champion goes to the line in the first Grand Prix meeting in the Russian capital since 1992, the year after the break up of the Soviet Union.
The meeting has attracted a host of stars including Jamaican sprinter Merlene Ottey, who is still one of the world's top athletes 16 years after competing for Jamaica at the Moscow Olympics.
After a disappointing performance at 5,000 metres in the Rome Grand Prix meeting on Wednesday, when she struggled to victory in a time of 14:54:75, O'Sullivan will be keen to sharpen up over 3,000 metres, a distance she dominated in 1995.
For Ottey, the Moscow meeting is another stepping stone to her fifth appearance at the Olympics. After more than a decade of frustration at major competitions, Ottey finally broke through at the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart with a victory in the 200 metres.
Ottey retained her title in Gothenburg last year, although she enjoyed a large slice of good fortune when her perennial rival Gwen Torrence was disqualified for running out of her lane.
At the age of 35, and now officially designated as a roving ambassador for Jamaica, Ottey has a grand total of four bronze medals from four Olympics Games.
Atlanta, next month, must represent her last chance for an Olympic title, with the 200 metres probably her best bet against the formidable challenge of Torrence who will be competing in her home town.
On Wednesday night Ottey clocked 11 seconds exactly n winning the loo metres at Rome's Golden Gala, ahead of three fellow Jamaicans, and she will race over that distance again here on Friday. Her time was the second fastest of the season, bettered only by Torrence.
This time, Ottey faces Europe's leading, women sprinter, Russian Irina Privalova, who won the 100/200 metres double at the European Championships in Helsinki two years ago.
Privalova has been training intensively at Moscow State University for her first out door meeting of the year.
Juliet Cuthbert who won two silver medals at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and finished second to compatriot Ottey in Rome, is also in the field.
Noureddine Morceli, the Olympic and world 1,500 metres champion, competes in his specialist event for the second time ink three days, while world steeplechase champion Moses Kiptanui, who finished third in the 5,000 metres in Rome, drops down a distance to compete in a 3,000 metres flat race.
Kiptanui, a former world record hold over 5,000 metres, set a personal best in Rome but still finished behind Morocco's Salah Hissou and fellow Kenyan Philip Mosima.
Pole vaulter Sergei Bubka, who like Ottey has something to prove in Atlanta, will also be competing at the Lokomotiv stadium.
Bubka has reigned unchallenged at five consecutive world championships since the inaugural Helsinki competition in 19,83, but crashed out of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics when he failed three times to clear his initial height.
The field events will also feature Czech Jan Zelezney who holds the world record in the javelin and is threatening to take the mark past 100 metres after his phenomenal throw of 98.48 metres in Germany last month.
