{"id":324416,"date":"2026-03-02T04:07:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T04:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/324416\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T04:07:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T04:07:12","slug":"kate-oconnor-leaps-to-long-jump-gold-with-her-irrepressibly-competitive-style-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/324416\/","title":{"rendered":"Kate O\u2019Connor leaps to long jump gold with her irrepressibly competitive style \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A handy weekend for Kate O\u2019Connor<\/a> by her own multi-event standards, and still she was able to break new ground with her now irrepressibly competitive style. Two new lifetime bests of immense quality, and she\u2019s only just getting started again.<\/p>\n

In her first appearance of 2026, O\u2019Connor took on two individual events at the National Indoor Championships \u2013 winning the long jump outright on Sunday with a spectacular opening leap, after finishing second to Sarah Lavin in Saturday\u2019s 60 metres hurdles<\/a>. Buoyant and buzzing, she couldn\u2019t have wished for more.<\/p>\n

The Sport Ireland Arena was packed to capacity, partly in anticipation of O\u2019Connor\u2019s return to competition for the first time since winning the heptathlon silver medal at the World Championships in Tokyo last September. Already it seems she\u2019s moved up another level, confidence soaring too.<\/p>\n

Coming in here, her long jump best of 6.32m was set during her silver medal run in the pentathlon at the World Indoor Championships a year ago \u2013 and she smashed that mark with her first jump on Sunday, leaping out to a massive 6.50m, the third fastest jump ever by an Irish woman.<\/p>\n

She followed that with jumps of 6.29, and 6.35m, then called it quits \u2013 skipping her final three jumps, already well satisfied with her return. That was also to mimic the three jumps permitted in the pentathlon, her next competition, with the 2026 World Indoor Championships in Torun, Poland now just under three weeks away.<\/p>\n

\"KateKate O\u2019Connor at the the long jump. Photograph: Morgan Treacy\/Inpho <\/p>\n

After improving her 60m hurdles best on Saturday from 8.30 seconds to 8.21 \u2013 Lavin winning in 8.07 \u2013 O\u2019Connor will know in her own head what those results would do for her pentathlon score. Only that\u2019s for another day, the 25-year-old Dundalk athlete perfectly content for now.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came here to sharpen up, see where I\u2019m at, so I\u2019m absolutely delighted,\u201d she said. \u201cThe training is all coming together, and I hope I can just replicate the same when I get to World Indoors, perform with those top girls, and hopefully do something good again.<\/p>\n

\u201cTraining has been great, I\u2019ve got a fire in my belly, I know what I want to do this year and I\u2019ll try my best to go out and do it. To be out before a crowd like this, I\u2019ve really enjoyed getting back. I\u2019d something to work towards, still have something to work towards. I hope I can do more magical things this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"KateKate O\u2019Connor with her gold medal from the women\u2019s long jump. Photograph: Morgan Treacy\/Inpho <\/p>\n

The only Irish women who have jumped longer are Elizabeth Ndudi, who last month jumped a national record of 6.63m in the US, and former Irish record holder Kelly Proper. O\u2019Connor\u2019s 8.21 in the 60m hurdles also moves her to third on the Irish all-time list behind Lavin and Derval O\u2019Rourke.<\/p>\n

Long jump specialist Lauren Callaghan from Finn Valley AC was the closest to O\u2019Connor, jumping 6.29m with her last attempt.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s lovely for my coaches too,\u201d added O\u2019Connor, her father Michael a close observer from the stand. \u201cWhenever I go out and do things like that, it shows that the work we\u2019re doing behind the scenes is actually working. I think my coaches don\u2019t give themselves enough credit, but they really know what they\u2019re doing, we\u2019re all delighted with what we\u2019ve produced.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A handy weekend for Kate O\u2019Connor by her own multi-event standards, and still she was able to break…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,14940,112],"class_list":["post-324416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kate-o-connor","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}