Cork Olympian Sophie O'Sullivan, daughter of Sonia, will add another chapter into her growing career this week when she makes her indoor championship debut at the World Indoor Championships in Nanjing, China.

The Ballymore Cobh AC athlete will be on action on Friday, 21st March and she will compete in the heats of the 1500m at 10:25am, with the final of the event on Sunday at 12:28 pm.

This follows 4:06.74 tracked at an outdoor event in Australia at the start of this month and O’Sullivan missing out on the Olympic semi-final over 1500m by one place in 2024.

Despite her inexperience at running indoors, the Ballymore Cobh AC athlete is in good shape while travelling to China. “ “It's good. I mean, I obviously haven't run,” she explained.

“I haven't run any indoor races, but I ran one race outdoors in Australia. It kind of went better than I... I just kind of didn't know where I'd be at the first race.

"And it was kind of better than I'd ever been at the time of year. I figured, you know, I was in good shape, so I might as well come and give the indoors a crack.”

The decision to take up indoor running was not an easy one, as O’Sullivan has had to battle a number of injuries at this time of year during recent seasons.

“I kind of tend to get injured that time of year most of the time,” she explained.

“I think you don't think of yourself as an injury-prone person. But you know, when you kind of look back and there's a few, like, lots of... little things, and you know, it ends up being a fair bit of time out.

“I just think this year I was kind of focusing on the World Championships at the end of the year. I kind of wanted to make sure that I was focusing on that.

"I thought I just wanted to get a good year of training in, so I was kind of just not really looking to race heaps... I was just looking for a bit of training.

"I guess just looking to get a bit of training in and then kind of build off that.”

The inspiration behind all of this was Sarah Healy’s gold medal at the European Championships.

“It was really good to watch,” she said.

“It was one of those, you know, you're just so happy to see, you know, Sarah, especially, that you get a chance for it to just really go her way. "Because you know she's capable always, so I was really happy to see that.

"You know when people get medals, I think you just kind of... You think it just makes it a bit more possible for everyone and, it just kind of puts the thought out there.”

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