BY LEE MAGINNIS
KATE O’Connor has claimed her first ever global medal at the World Indoor Championships pentathlon in Nanjing, China, with silver.
The 24 year old Newry born athlete brought home the bronze medal earlier this month from the European Indoor Championships in The Netherlands.
O’Connor, under the watchful eye of dad and coach Michael, set yet another personal best of 8.30 in the 60m hurdles, then followed that up with a 1.81m clearance in the high jump.
A second PB followed in the shot put (14.64m), and a third in the long jump (6.32m). The long jump results this year have been extremely pleasing as in previous years she had tended to lose ground in the event.
In the concluding 800m, the medals were decided.
While Kate and the gold medallist, Vanninen of Finland, were close, Kate was well clear of the American who was her only challenger for the silver medal.
Gold to Vanninen with a total of 4821 points. Silver to O’Connor 79 points adrift, but 73 points clear of Brooks in bronze.
Ireland had not won a medal at the World Indoor Championships since Derval O’Rourke’s gold in the 60m hurdles (Moscow in 2006).
No multi-eventer had won a global medal for Ireland until O’Connor came along, writing her own piece of athletics history.
“I’ve never done a competition so close [to another competition] let alone a championships,” the 24 year old told BBC Sport.
“It was all about rest and recovery and to honest coming into today, I was really unsure how it would go.
“Normally I would do a week of training going into a competition and I would know where I’m at whereas coming into this, my last training session was the Europeans.
“I knew that to get the silver, I had to beat the American girl so that was just the plan. I just wanted to go out and run hard and just fight until the very end.
“I wasn’t sure where she was at all but for the last 50m I was just thinking ‘how much do you want the silver?’. I’m upgrading from the [bronze at the] Europeans so I’m really happy.”
O’Connor also told Athletics Ireland that she hopes her medals over the last fortnight will “really push multi events forward in the country and let younger athletes see what other options are available to them in athletics”.
