It’s just over four months until Kate O’Connor plans to step back into the athletics arena. After winning her fifth successive medal at the World Indoor Championships on Sunday, the lofty goal she has now set herself is to win two more in quick succession.

First up will be the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow at the end of July, when O’Connor will be competing for Northern Ireland, having already won silver in the last edition of those championships in 2022.

That was her first senior multi-event medal and this time around O’Connor believes she can go one place better and win gold.

The European Athletics Championships get under way in Birmingham just over a week later. O’Connor has yet to compete at that level, missing the last two editions of those championships through injury. A bit of a score to settle there too.

It means she will have just under two weeks in between the two heptathlons – given they’re at the end of the championship schedule – making for 14 events in all. The close distance between the championships has influenced her decision to aim for both, although the European Championships will certainly be considered the bigger priority.

[ Ultra-competitive Kate O’Connor lets latest achievement on world stage sink in slowly ]

There are other priorities before that, starting with a two-week holiday.

O’Connor also knows the knee injury that flared up again before her bronze medal in the pentathlon in Torun on Sunday needs to be carefully managed.

“The plan is definitely to try and double up,” O’Connor says. “I’ll probably do a few individual events once everything is going okay beforehand, but I’ll do Commonwealth Games and then head to European champs. It’s going to be a tough enough turnaround. But two heptathlons is okay for me. I’m looking forward to it.”

O’Connor did take on two heptathlons last summer, winning gold at the World University Games in July before adding a silver at the World Championships in Tokyo. But these were almost two months apart.

It was during the long jump in Tokyo when she first sustained the knee injury. On that occasion, she dropped to fourth after the long jump, injuring her knee in the last attempt, before bouncing back in the javelin and 800m.

The javelin remains her strongest event, and O’Connor’s five-event pentathlon score in Torun of 4,839 points, smashing her own Irish record, suggests she’s ready to make another step up in the heptathlon.

However, the injury to her right knee, which O’Connor describes as a cartilage defect, will need to be carefully monitored. She also endured an Achilles’ tendon strain in the two weeks before Torun, although that’s all part of the challenge of multi-event preparations.

“It was just really unfortunate timing,” she says. “I have a cartilage defect. It’s something I deal with and it’s something I’ll forever deal with unless I get it operated on, but we’re erring on the side of ‘let’s not do [it]’.”

Her father and coach, Michael O’Connor, joked with her on Sunday that they might have to start covering her in bubble wrap before competitions from now on.

At the European Championships, O’Connor is likely to have Sophie Dokter from the Netherlands to contend with again, the 23-year-old winning gold on Sunday with 4,888 points.

“Yeah, I’ll compete again against Sophie at outdoors. But I keep saying that 2028 [the Los Angeles Olympics] is the ultimate goal, and I’m progressing. I have to keep getting better to keep up with these girls, and they’re obviously getting better too, but we’re already pushing each other on,” O’Connor says.

“I just have to hope and pray that my time will come at the time that I ultimately really want it to be. Which is in LA. Multi-events is so competitive right now; all the girls are class. And to win a medal at their global champs is not easy by any means.

“I’ve also tried to put myself in the mindset of, when you come to these of championships, it’s a chance to just show off what you’ve been doing behind the scenes.”