Kate O’Connor has effectively sealed the heptathlon gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow after producing a sensational javelin throw in the penultimate event.
After torrential rain on Tuesday evening, conditions inside the Scotstoun Stadium were more favourable for Wednesday’s morning session, and O’Connor dominated the javelin with a first-round throw of 52.85 metres, which was a Commonwealth Games heptathlon best.
After six of the seven events, that brought O’Connor’s tally to 5,611 points and safely clear of England’s Jade O’Dowda, who still sits in the silver medal position on 5,353 points. O’Dowda’s best in the javelin was 43.85m.
O’Connor only has the 800m to come in Wednesday’s evening session (8.55pm), her 258 points lead on O’Dowda meaning that bar illness or injury, the Dundalk star should now seal what will be a remarkable sixth successive multi-event medal.
O’Connor won a World Indoor bronze in March in the pentathlon, adding to the four successive championship medals she won last year. She also won Commonwealth Games silver for Northern Ireland four years ago.
Earlier on Wednesday, she produced another massive performance in the long jump, saving her best until last when leaping out to 6.37m, an outdoor personal best. O’Dowda produced a long jump best of 6.26m in the third round.
O’Connor has always considered the javelin to be one of her strongest events, her 52.85m here just short of her lifetime best of 53.06m, which she threw during her silver medal series at the World Championships in Tokyo last September.
O’Connor’s Northern Ireland team-mate Anna McCauley has slipped to eighth place after her javelin best of 36.99m, and is now on 5,042 points. McCauley had produced the best effort of her life in the long jump with her second-round leap of 6.23m, moving her up to fourth overall at that point.
O’Connor’s 6.37m was the best long jump outright. She did jump 6.50m indoors this year, on that occasion competing in the long jump only, winning the National Indoor title.
After Tuesday’s first four events, O’Connor was already clear in the gold medal position on 3,731 points, 49 points clear O’Dowda overnight, who had taken over the lead after the shot put. Running in torrential rain, O’Connor defied the conditions to take the 200m victory in 24.14 seconds, into a -0.5m/s headwind.
She had clearly struggled to find her form inside slippery shot put circle, with best of 12.85m with her second throw, describing that event as “a nightmare”. Earlier on Tuesday, she produced a high jump best of 1.82m, also clocking 13.54 seconds in the 100m hurdles.