Kate O’Connor is within touching distance of the gold medal in the heptathlon at the European Championship after another strong performance in the javelin, propelling herself into first place with just the 800m to come.
O’Connor produced a best throw of 50.16m in the first round, bringing her overall tally to 5,812 points – 51 points clear of rival Emma Oosterwegel from the Netherlands.
That gives O’Connor plenty of breathing space going into the 800m on Saturday evening, set for 7.45pm. Although Oosterwegel does have the faster personal best over 800m, she would need to beat O’Connor by more than three seconds to leap above her and into the gold medal position.
Oosterwegel is currently on 5,761 points, with the other Dutch medal hope Sofie Dokter third on 5,707, 105 points off O’Connor.
The Dundalk 25-year-old ran a superb 800m when she won gold at the recent Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. If she can come close to her personal best of 2:09.56, set when winning silver at the World Championships last year, the gold medal will surely be hers. She’s also on course to smash her Irish record of 6,714 points.
The javelin is considered O’Connor’s best event, and although her 50.16 was short of her personal best of 53.06, it was plenty good to put her in pole position. Earlier on Saturday, she also a personal best in the long jump.
“I’m feeling pretty positive, I’m in a strong enough position,” she said. “Now it’s just time to rest, relax and think tactics in a couple of hours. I’m happy with my long jump. Javelin, I was trying to navigate the winds, but I can’t really make any excuses, I just didn’t execute well.
“I’ve got a healthy-ish lead, but I’ll have a job to do later. It’s going to be really stiff, I knew that coming in here. I think I’ve given myself every opportunity to do what I came here to do, I’ve just got one more event to go to try to do it. I’ll give it my all.”
The Irish 4x100m relay team celebrate their progression to the finals. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho
There were also two excellent Irish performances in the heats of the 4x100m relays, as both the men’s and women’s quartets booked their place in Saturday night’s finals, the latter setting a new national record of 43.13 in the process. Lucy-May Sleeman, Ciara Neville, Sarah Leahy and Lauren Roy earned fourth in their heat after a series of slick baton exchanges. The expectation is that Rhasidat Adeleke will swap in for one of the legs in the final, boosting their medal chances.
Then came the Irish men’s foursome of Toluwabori Akinola, Seán Aigboboh, Marcus Lawler and Israel Olatunde, who finished sixth overall in a season best of 39.13 seconds. It’s the first time Ireland will have teams in two 4x100m relay finals at the same championships.
In the women’s 1,500m heats, Sarah Healy and Sophie O’Sullivan both impressed to qualify for Sunday’s final, taking second and fifth respectively.
Healy was back on the track four days after her fourth-place finish in the 5,000m. Returning to her specialist event, she ran a composed race, moving into second coming down the home stretch to finish alongside Portugal’s Patricia Silva, who clocked 4:08.10 to Healy’s 4:08.12.
Sophie O’Sullivan and Sarah Healy after the 1,500m semi-final. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho
O’Sullivan did have to work a little harder down the homestretch to move into fifth, having lost some ground around the top bend. Both Irish women look well capable of getting into the medal mix on Sunday night. Jodie McCann, meanwhile, was 26th overall, running 4:14.63 to miss out on a spot in the final.
Although Healy briefly lost her stride in the first lap, she quickly recovered: “I don’t know what happened and my face looked at the floor for a second, but I stayed on two feet,” she said. “I was definitely worried about [the last 100m] having done a 5K a few days ago but today I felt great on that last lap.
“I took two days to recover and initially, it was a lot of frustration and annoyance at myself. But then I started to look at it as, I’ve had far worse results than fourth.”
Earlier on Friday, David Kenny finished sixth in the half-marathon race walk. The Kerryman was in medal contention through the first half of the race, finishing in a personal best time of 1:24.45. Oisin Lane also performed admirably to finish 11th in 1:27.09, also a personal best.
The gold medal was won by Spain’s Paul McGrath – who has a Scottish father, a Spanish mother and Irish grandparents – in 1:23.23.
Saturday evening session – Irish in action
- 7.45pm: Kate O’Connor, heptathlon 800m
- 8.25pm: Jack O’Leary, men’s 10,000m
- 9.07pm: Andrew Coscoran, men’s 1,500m
- 9.33pm: Men’s 4x100m final
- 9.48pm: Women’s 4x100m final