After a near-flawless two days at the Japan National Stadium, the 24-year-old Dundalk athlete became the first Irish athlete ever to win a multi-events medal at a global outdoor championship, O\u2019Connor taking second place in the heptathlon in Tokyo on Saturday.<\/p>\n
She racked up a remarkable 6714 points to finish behind US star Anna Hall (6888), obliterating her previous national record of 6487. After a season in which she continually ascended to a new level, blossoming into all she could be, O\u2019Connor has now summited a peak that very few in Irish athletics ever scaled \u2013 and no one in this specific realm.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just insane,\u201d she said. \u201cWords can\u2019t describe how I feel, the year I\u2019ve had. Indoors was a complete dream and I really wanted to show I could carry that into outdoors. It\u2019s a really special time.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Connor also ended a lengthy medal drought for the Irish at her sport\u2019s top table.<\/p>\n
Since the Sydney Olympics in 2000, Ireland had gone 18 straight global outdoor championships without a medal in a track or field discipline, and it\u2019s 12 years since they won a medal of any kind at the World Championships \u2013 going back to Rob Heffernan\u2019s race walk gold in 2013.<\/p>\n
But now that drought has ended and, as good as this was, it could just be the beginning.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Connor had already bagged three medals this year: pentathlon bronze at the European Indoors, silver at the World Indoors and heptathlon gold at the World University Games.<\/p>\n
But this was on an entirely different level, O\u2019Connor defeating both the reigning world champion and also the reigning Olympic champion as she etched her name among the immortals of Irish athletics.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m so glad I could represent my country and win global medals,\u201d she said. \u201cMy expectations for myself changed this year, and they\u2019ve changed again now. I\u2019ve set myself up really well for the next three years leading up to the Olympics.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Friday, she started the heptathlon in explosive fashion, clocking a huge personal best of 13.44 in the 100m hurdles, her Irish teammate Sarah Lavin passing on some useful tips as they trained together at the Irish holding camp in Hong Kong. In the high jump that followed, she again rose to a new level \u2013 literally \u2013 as she cleared another PB of 1.86m.<\/p>\n
The shot put had been giving her stress on the build-up, blighted by inconsistency in training, but O\u2019Connor wasn\u2019t far off her PB when it mattered most, throwing 14.37m. She rounded off day one with another lifetime best over 200m of 24.07, leaving her second in the standings overnight.<\/p>\n
Day two saw her again hit the ground running. O\u2019Connor had a few nervous minutes after fouling the first of her three attempts, but then jumped a decent 6.17m in round two and extended to 6.22m with her final effort.<\/p>\n
Next up was the javelin, her forte, and she unleashed all kinds of fury with that right arm, sending it a whopping 53.06m with her first attempt, drawing gasps from the crowd at the Japan National Stadium. She didn\u2019t improve on her second attempt and, having picked up a knee injury in the long jump, she wisely chose to pass her final attempt. That injury had threatened her participation in the final two events.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t really able to run, I wasn\u2019t able to go up and down stairs,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was pure grit and determination and want for a medal that I managed to pull myself through. I never was going to settle for a bronze; I was always going to fight 100% to the line, sore knee or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the concluding 800m, that was exactly what she did, O\u2019Connor emptying the tank in the most exhaustive, extraordinary fashion, knowing she just needed to finish within 11 seconds of Johnson-Thompson and within five seconds of Taliyah Brooks and silver would be hers.<\/p>\n
In the end, she did far more than that, crossing the line in 2:09.56, making it five personal bests out of seven events. There and then, she knew.<\/p>\n
Moments later, she saw the confirmation on the big screen, confirming something she\u2019d long dreamed of, something she spent many, many years working towards \u2013 Kate O\u2019Connor: world silver medallist.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople don\u2019t understand the amount of work that I\u2019ve put in behind the scenes,\u201d she said. \u201cI have a team around me and they don\u2019t just support me as an athlete, they love me as a person. There\u2019s times my mind is full of doubt but with people like that around, they fill you with what you need to be filled with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steering the high-performance ship is her father, Michael, her lead coach among a number of others who help her across various disciplines. He grew emotional as he talked about his star protegee. \u201cIt just seems there\u2019s been so many fantastic days, I don\u2019t know when it\u2019s going to stop,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat can I say about this girl? She\u2019s incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
They form quite the partnership \u2013 Michael being a coach who has looked out for first and foremost for his daughter as a person, while simultaneously pushing her towards the top of the world. It\u2019s a delicate balance that\u2019s fiendishly difficult to strike.<\/p>\n
This moment is hers, first and foremost, but it\u2019s also his. After all, he\u2019d walked each step of this path alongside her, offering the shoulder to cry on during her darkest days \u2013 and there were many.<\/p>\n
He was there too six years in Boras, Sweden, where O\u2019Connor announced her talent on the international stage by winning Ireland\u2019s first major multi-events medal \u2013 a silver at the European U-20s. There were many rough days in the years since, O\u2019Connor missing the Olympics in 2021 and the Europeans the following year with injury, but she never strayed off course.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always have believed I could do it but it\u2019s one thing believing and another actually going out and doing it,\u201d she said. \u201cI didn\u2019t think it\u2019d come around as quickly as it has, but I\u2019m getting very used to winning medals and I don\u2019t really want to give that up. You can bet next year I\u2019ll be back and looking to win some more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a near-flawless two days at the Japan National Stadium, the 24-year-old Dundalk athlete became the first Irish…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,898,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-33690","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-latest-news-ticker","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33690","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=33690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}