{"id":550459,"date":"2026-07-15T05:53:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T05:53:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/550459\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T05:53:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T05:53:20","slug":"kate-oconnor-sets-sights-on-medal-winning-return-at-commonwealth-games-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/550459\/","title":{"rendered":"Kate O\u2019Connor sets sights on medal-winning return at Commonwealth Games \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

No sporting event loves the big countdown more than the Olympics<\/a>, although Kate O\u2019Connor<\/a> has other things in mind long before she starts turning any undue attention towards Los Angeles on July 14th, 2028. <\/p>\n

\u201cEverything we\u2019re doing is building towards being in the best possible shape for LA and the best possible athlete I can be by then,\u201d O\u2019Connor says. \u201cBut you can definitely get caught up in the whole Olympic cycle, when there are so many other big championships and medals to win. But it\u2019s not long . . . it will fly by.\u201d<\/p>\n

As far as O\u2019Connor is concerned, all that matters for now are the two weeks to go before she returns to the heptathlon at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Her seven events are set for July 28th and 29th. Two weeks after that, she\u2019ll take on another heptathlon at the European Championships<\/a> in Birmingham. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Connor hasn\u2019t competed anywhere since winning her fifth championship medal within 13 months, with bronze in the pentathlon at the World Indoors in March. The goal of winning two more medals within just over a fortnight is a lofty one \u2013 exactly the sort of challenge the 25-year-old from Dundalk relishes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope I\u2019ll be able to do it and the training is definitely pointing in that direction,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve never put myself in a position where I\u2019ve done two heptathlons so close together, but I\u2019ve full faith I\u2019ll be able to. And we\u2019ve tailored the training to replicate tough days, close together.<\/p>\n

\"IrishIrish athlete Kate O\u2019Connor is a Davy ambassador. She admits to placing medal expectations on herself in all competitions. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s exciting, to try something new. Training has been going really well, but like I keep saying, it\u2019s one thing doing it in training, it\u2019s different trying to replicate that in competition, especially when you\u2019re under pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connor also doesn\u2019t hesitate in saying she\u2019s \u201cgoing there to win\u201d \u2013 in both Glasgow and Birmingham. The expectation now is that she will win a medal each time she competes, something she also embraces.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s different this year. I\u2019m going as one of the favourites to win. That\u2019s a different pressure, but you can never walk into any championships knowing how you\u2019re going to do. You still have to go out and perform.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes I get extremely stressed, wondering if the body will hold together. I haven\u2019t competed at all since indoors, which is a little nerve-racking. But I\u2019m trying to just enjoy the ride. Year-on-year, my plan is to continually get better. All I can do is focus on myself. I\u2019m producing better results in training. If I can score higher this year, higher next year, then score the highest so far in 2028, that\u2019s all I can do. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf other girls come out and beat me, then fair play to them, because they\u2019ll have been working pretty flippin\u2019 hard behind the scenes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"KateKate O’Connor made her Commonwealth Games debut in 2018 on the Gold Coast, Australia. Photograph: Cameron Spencer\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

O\u2019Connor was 17 when she made her senior debut at the 2018 Commonwealth Games on Australia\u2019s Gold Coast. Four years ago in Birmingham, she won heptathlon silver behind England\u2019s Katarina Johnson-Thompson, who\u2019s back seeking a third successive title.<\/p>\n

She has a strong connection to the Commonwealth event too: her mother Valerie was born and raised in Portglenone, just outside Ballymena, while O\u2019Connor was born in Newry, the nearest hospital to the family home in Dundalk.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mam is a northern woman through-and-through. So there\u2019s a lot of family history there, aside from me being born just across the Border. So it\u2019s always felt right for me to represent Northern Ireland too. My dad is from Dundalk, but I\u2019m representing my mother\u2019s side of the family. And I\u2019ve trained predominantly up the North too.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the Commonwealth Games have always been huge for me, in my development as an athlete. It was my first senior competition and to get a feel for that village vibe \u2013 to get that experience so young has definitely stood to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 Kate O\u2019Connor was speaking as a Davy ambassador.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No sporting event loves the big countdown more than the Olympics, although Kate O\u2019Connor has other things in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[163615,61,60,14940,112],"class_list":["post-550459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-european-athletics-championships","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kate-o-connor","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550459","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=550459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}