Paulina LIGARSKA, Pentathlon Women, POL
Szabina SZŰCS, Pentathlon Women, HUN
Anna HALL, Pentathlon Women, USA
Kate O’CONNOR, Pentathlon Women, IRL
Sveva GEREVINI, Pentathlon Women, ITA. photo by World Athletics
Kate O’Connor, bronze medalist, World Indoor Championships, Torun, Poland
I first became aware of Kate O’Connor by watching her in the European indoor pentathlon in Apeldoorn last year, when she came third. Over the years, she has accumulated quite a collection of multi-event medals, starting with her silver medal in the heptathlon at the European under-20s in 2019.
Indoors, she followed that European bronze with a world silver in Nanjing last year. Outdoors, she took a silver medal at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in 2022 – she is in that odd category where she competes for (the Republic of) Ireland at European and World Championships but for Northern Ireland at the Commonwealth Games. She took silver in the World Championships in Tokyo heptathlon last year – behind Anna Hall but ahead of Katarina Johnson-Thompson.
Kate O’CONNOR, Pentathlon Women, IRL, photo by World Athletics
Her performances in Torun last weekend were:
60m hurdles 8.23
High Jump 1.81m
Shot Put 14.70 PR
Long Jump 6.38
800m 2:10.26 PR
Two PRs, but of course, she was not satisfied! “I came here with really high expectations and, although I won a medal, I expected a bit more. But I can’t complain. My points score progressed, and that’s what matters, so I am really grateful. Since the nationals, I had a few ups and downs in training, so coming here and winning a medal means a lot. I am happy to add one more to the collection.”
Coached by her father, Michael, she took up track and field at an early age and tried the different disciplines. She recalled raising eyebrows at a junior event when she entered the javelin and the 800m!
In a recent interview, she said that she loved multi-events because “if one event’s not going well, I have six others to try and pick up my spirits with. It’s something you have to learn with multi-events. You’ve got to be able to deal with the lows, but you’ve also got to be able to deal with the highs. You can’t go from one event being absolutely buzzing to the next, carrying that energy and rushing through things. Heptathlon is such a mental game, not just a physical one. Heptathlon takes years of practice and I still haven’t got it down but I’ve definitely got better from when I was younger. That’s one thing I love about heptathlon, there’s always things to learn.”
She has been a trailblazer along the way, becoming Ireland’s first Olympic heptathlete in Paris and the first Irish woman to surpass 6000 heptathlon points. She is looking forward to a busy summer with a European Championship and a third Commonwealth Games, having been in Gold Coast at the age of 17, as well as her silver medal in 2022.
And she seems to be improving steadily.
