Kate O’Connor has done it again, this time making Irish athletics history on the global stage when winning the silver medal in the pentathlon at the World Indoor Championships in Nanjing, China.
It’s the first medal for Ireland at these championships in 19 years, and the 24-year-old from Dundalk made absolutely sure of it. After staying in contention throughout the day, she finished up with an outright third-place finish in the last of the five events, the 800m, which elevated her into second place.
Coming as it does just 12 days and yet some 5,300 miles apart from her bronze medal at the European Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn – that being the first senior medal won by any Irish athlete in a multi-event – O’Connor’s effort is even more laudable, her sheer determination unflinching despite the step up in competition.
O’Connor had been sitting in third place before the 800m, the event she won outright in Apeldoorn, though well within sight of Taliyah Brooks from the United States, then just three points ahead of her. In the end she finished well clear of Brooks, who had to settle for bronze, O’Connor’s time being 2:14.19.
Ireland’s Kate O’Connor wins silver medal at World Indoor Championships
How Kate O’Connor won her silver medal: In pictures
The rise and rise of Kate O’Connor: Ireland’s first world indoor medallist for 19 years
The Olympic charter and USA’s hard-right playbook are on a collision course for Los Angeles 2028
O’Connor points tally was 4,742, just off her European Indoor tally and Irish record of 4,781, with European Indoor champion Saga Vanninen of Finland winning with 4821. Brooks was third on 4,669.
[ The rise and rise of Kate O'ConnorOpens in new window ]
Starting out with a personal best of 8.30 seconds in the 60m hurdles, O’Connor then cleared 1.81m in the high jump, the best in that event outright, before setting another personal best of 14.64 in the shot put.
She followed that with two personal bests in the long jump, leaping to 6.27m with her first attempt, then improving to 6.30m with her second, briefly putting her on top of the points. Vanninen then improved her standing with a best of 6.37m, with Brooks jumping 6.35m, though that was well down in her lifetime best of 6.78m.
It had been 19 years since Derval O’Rourke last won a medal for Ireland on this stage, with her gold in the 60m hurdles in Moscow in March 2006. In the past, Ireland had won a total of 10 World Indoor medals since 1987, by six different athletes, plus one relay bronze. O’Connor becomes only the third Irish woman to medal after Sonia O’Sullivan and O’Rourke.
“I was a bit more tired going into this 800m, coming off the back of Apeldoorn,” O’Connor said. “And also it was a much longer day today, with a big break. You’re going from 10 in the morning and the 800m was 9.15 at night [Nanjing time]. There’s lots of things to factor in.
“But I went into the 800m and I knew there was a medal there if I finished, but as an athlete you always want more. I’m getting fond of chasing girls down and beating them in the 800m which seems to be half decently well for me.
“Although it’s really nerve-racking on the line, it’s nice to have something to fight for in the 800m and it makes the medal even sweeter. You always want to be at the top but right now I’m really, really happy and content with what I’ve done. I think there’s a lot more opportunity for me to get better, do better.”
Coming so close to the European Indoors?
“It was really tough, to be completely honest. I’ve never had a championship so close, a competition so close. It’s then: can I produce again? You also don’t want to come in off the back of a championship and not produce so there’s lots of different pressures, but I know I’m in good shape. I tried to go out and enjoy myself as much as I could.”
She never doubted her ability to repeat her performance.
“I was anxious kind of coming into the competition, but after the hurdles, I knew that I was there. You can always be looking at the other girls and wondering what they’re going to do, but you can only really control yourself, and I was just trying to take each event as it came, trust the form that I’m in. I knew everything was there, it was just a case of going out and doing it.
“It’s changed over the years I think, actually is changes from competition to competition, today I was excited, like before the hurdles I was thinking I love this, this is class, this is what I train for. Obviously I’m nervous, but there are some of my final thoughts.
“In Apeldoorn, my thoughts were ‘oh gosh, I don’t know how this will go’, so maybe not as positive. But maybe having the European medal under my belt was a blessing coming into these, because in a way my job was done, I’d done more than I wanted to do in the first place, so I was able to relax and enjoy the competition.”
On ending the 19-year medal wait, she added: “I think I was five when Derval won. I’d seen a few things that there hadn’t been a medal in so long, but I was just trying to do my own thing, selfishly enough zone out, I had my own job to do. But I’m chuffed hearing it’s the first one in a while.”
O’Connor first broke through at the European Under-20 Championships in 2019, aged 18, winning the silver medal with 6,093 points and smashing the Irish senior record in the process. She also won a Commonwealth Games silver medal in 2022, representing Northern Ireland, and last summer in Paris became Ireland’s first representative in the Olympic heptathlon, finishing 14th.
Coached in Dundalk by her father Michael, O’Connor current divides her time between home and Belfast, where she’s completing a master’s n Communications and Public Relations at Ulster University.
Earlier, Sophie O’Sullivan missed out on qualification in the women’s 1,500m, finishing sixth in her heat in 4:16.68, which was still an indoor personal best, that heat won by Diribe Welteji from Ethiopia in 4:12.25. Only the top three in each heat progressed.
Men’s qualification was even tighter, only the top two being sure, and despite a bold effort Andrew Coscoran also missed out, much to his clear disappointment, finishing third in 3:40.79, that heat won by Jakob Ingebrigtsen in 3:39.80. Coscoran will also run the 3,000m, that a straight final on Saturday, with Ingebrigtsen attempting the double.
Sarah Healy is also looking to follow up her European Indoor success, winning gold in the 3,000m, when she goes in the 3,000m here on Saturday morning, that also a straight final.
