24-year old Kate O’Connor took a huge leap forward in her athletics career with a magnificent bronze medal winning performance at the European Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn, The Netherlands.
The Belfry Gardens native and former St Vincent’s student had already introduced her talents to the world stage three years ago when she claimed silver for Northern Ireland at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
But on a memorable Sunday for Irish athletics, O’Connor showed she has improved immeasurably over the last couple of years as she made history by becoming the first Irish athlete to win a senior multi-events medal. The Pentathlon consists of five events and O’Connor managed to shatter her own Irish Pentathlon record with a total of 4781 points, achieving personal bests in four of the five events.
She began the competition running 8.31 in the 60m hurdles, before overcoming a sticky start in the high jump where she failed twice at 1.75m before clearing it on her final attempt. After that scare she went on to clear 1.84m which put her well and truly in the running for a medal. The third event saw her throw 14.32 metres in the shot put before yet another personal best of 6.27m in the Long Jump.
That put her in fourth spot going into the final event which would be the 800 metres. O’Connor was up against it given the fact her rival for bronze, Britain’s Jade O’Dowda, had a faster PB in the event. Given the points difference between O’Dowda and O’Connor the Dundalk athlete knew she needed to beat her rival for bronze by about 2.4 seconds. A huge ask it seemed.
According to Kate’s dad Michael, who also coaches her alongside Tom Reynolds, the trio made a plan for that final event. That plan was ripped up by O’Connor half way through the race as she decided to go all out and just try and run as hard and fast as she could to secure bronze. Unbelievably she held off the chasing pack to win the 800 metres in 2:11.42 and now all eyes were on O’Dowda to see how many seconds behind O’Connor she finished. After a nervous wait, bronze was confirmed for the Dundalk athlete with O’Dowda officially finishing in 2:15.91, over four seconds behind O’Connor.
Speaking to reporters afterwards O’Connor admitted she was in shock at what had just taken place.
“It’s absolute madness, I can’t believe it,” said O’Connor. “I knew I’d need something special to get into the medals, so I just took it one event at a time. After the long jump, I was frustrated because I had already put in four world-class performances and was still outside the top three. But I decided to give it everything.”
“I just thought, ‘feck it, I’m going to run as fast as I can and kick as hard as I can,’” O’Connor added. “With 220m to go, I said, ‘let’s go.’ I ran with all the guts I had, and it paid off.”
Meanwhile, Kate’s proud Dad Michael, praised his daughter for her exceptional performance which have elevated her on to the world stage.
“The Commonwealth Games where Kate won silver was fantastic and we were overjoyed with that performance but this was on a different level altogether. Most of the best multi-event athletes Kate competes against are from Europe so these were some of the very best in the world that Kate was competing against and she showed she is good enough to be in that company.
“She is an exceptional athlete and she has been exceptional all year in training so we kind of knew that she may well have a big performance in her for these championships. We got off to a rocky start when she missed 1.75m twice in the high jump but after that she was unbelievable and myself and Tom (Tom Reynolds, Kate’s other coach) were just looking at each other in amazement as she kept on making PB’s. After the fourth event she actually went outside the stadium with us for a wee break and a bit of air and she was actually a bit down and there were a few tears. She was saying to us, I have done brilliantly in all of the four events and I’m still not in the medal places. What do I have to do here?
“We made a plan for the final event which was the 800m but pretty soon after the race started Kate decided to throw that gameplan out the window and just go for it. And boy did she do just that. It was very emotional seeing her give it her all and win that final race to secure bronze. Such a proud moment. That was down to her. It was a piece of Kate O’Connor magic. She has that X-Factor that all top level athletes have and the exciting thing is we know that there is even more in the tank. We began a four year project which will take us to the Olympic games in 2028 and that is our goal now. We will continue to train hard but smart and mind Kate and ensure she is in the best possible condition for those games. The World Indoors are on in a couple of weeks in China and Kate has been selected to go to those so we’ll get those out of the way and then Kate can have a rest and soak in all that she has achieved,” stated Michael.
