It’s one measure of how far and fast Kate O’Connor has ascended the global athletics stage that she can battle her way to the bronze medal in the pentathlon at the World Indoor Championships, yet still harbour some feelings of regret.
It’s another measure entirely that O’Connor did it without being at her absolute best. By her own admission she has been nursing a couple of tricky injuries in recent weeks, as well as shouldering some considerable pressure and expectation, well before the battles even started here.
Instead, she simply rose to each of those challenges right through to the fireworks of an 800 metres finale in Torun, Poland – the 25-year-old Dundalk athlete unrelenting in her now irrepressibly competitive style.
In the end O’Connor still backed up her breakthrough season in brilliant fashion – winning a fifth successive championship medal in just under 13 months, and further reinforcing of her star status as one of the most consistent multievent specialists in the world.
“Is it awful that I’m a little bit disappointed in myself?” said O’Connor, who rounded off her five events by clocking 2:10:26 in the 800m, another indoor best, to leave her in the bronze medal position on 4,839 points – smashing her own Irish record in the process.
“I came in here and wanted to win the gold. I suppose that’s the competitiveness in me coming out. And I have to check myself a little bit and say, ‘come on, Kate, you just did a national record there, and came away with another global medal’.
Ireland’s Kate O’Connor in action in the Pentathlon 60m Hurdles at the World Athletics Indoor Championships. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho
“And I am proud. But, yeah, I’m competitive and I want more, and I think it’s a great thing that I want more. I think I carried myself really well today, I dealt with a lot of things behind the scenes that were pretty tough.”
The brilliantly in-form Sophie Dokter from the Netherlands wrapped up her gold medal on 4,888 points, with gold medal favourite Anna Hall from the US moving herself ahead of O’Connor in the last event, winning the 800m outright in 2:06.32, and finishing on 4,860 points in the silver medal spot.
O’Connor won silver at these championships last year, then added another silver behind Hall in the heptathlon at the World Championships in Torun. But as she reflected further on her injury problems in recent weeks, everything about her performance underlined her ability to deal with whatever obstacles come in her way.
“Gosh, it was just on and off,” O’Connor said of her recent injuries. “With the knee I couldn’t literally walk, had to take a week and a half off. A week after Nationals [last month]. I have a cartilage defect, the same knee that I hurt in Tokyo. It’s not a reinjury, it’s just something I’ll deal with. It’s one of those things, if you want to win gold medals, you’ve got to run that red line.
“And I’m not going to lie, it’s been really stressful. I even came here with a stye in my eye, which I’ve never had before, so I that tells you I have been stressed.”
Inevitably it all came down to the 800m, the four lap race ultimately deciding the medal destinations: Hall needed to beat O’Connor by at least two seconds to move into silver, and made sure of that when blasting though 400m in 59 seconds. Her 2:06.32 was also an indoor best. The 23-year-old Dokter nailed fifth in 2:12.27, still plenty enough to take gold, upsetting Hall on this occasion.
Still channelling all her nervous energy exactly the way she wanted, O’Connor’s tally bettered her Irish record of 4,781, set when taking bronze at last year’s European Indoor Championships.
Kate O’Connor competes in the Women’s high jump pentathlon. Photograph: Michael Steele/Getty
In the penultimate event, another superb effort of 6.38m by O’Connor in the long jump moved her into the silver medal position: “A few events, like the high jump didn’t really go to plan. And then, yeah, I slipped on some cables on one of the attempts. But a few events I was really with, like the long jump. I think that I dealt with the pressure there really well after failing that first attempt.”
O’Connor had finished the opening session earlier on Sunday by breaking new ground in the shot put, her third and final throw of 14.70m, a second successive best, leaving her on 2,909 points at that stage. Dokter and Hall were some way off O’Connor here, Dokter producing a best throw of 13.92, before Hall managed 14.23 with last throw, a critical performance by her.
Shortly before, in the high jump, O’Connor had first moved herself into the bronze medal position after the opening two events, a critical clearance at her third attempt at 1.81m keeping her in contention for a podium position. In her opening event, O’Connor’s fifth place in the 60 metres hurdles had left her in joint fourth position overall, her 8.23 seconds just off her recent lifetime best of 8.21 seconds.
“Hopefully, I’ll just continue building,” she added. “I think that the sky’s the limit for me. I don’t know, I don’t know where I’ll go, but I’ll keep working really hard behind the scenes and hopefully change the colour, and move upwards again next time.”
Starting just after 10am local time and finishing just after 8pm, it made for a stressful 10-hour day inside the competition mindset – and all in the most demanding and attritional of track and field events.
Torun may be famous as the gingerbread capital of the world, but O’Connor is returning home with something far more substantial, and a little more tasty.