{"id":209355,"date":"2025-12-01T09:14:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T09:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/209355\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T09:14:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T09:14:13","slug":"how-the-oconnor-father-daughter-duo-took-kitchen-table-plans-to-global-podiums","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/209355\/","title":{"rendered":"How the O\u2019Connor father-daughter duo took kitchen-table plans to global podiums"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">Dundalk schoolteacher Michael has become an elite coach in the pursuit of Kate\u2019s dreams\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Kate O'Connor with her father and coach Michael upon their arrival at Dublin Airport after this year's World Indoor Athletics Championships in China. Photo: Sam Barnes\/Sportsfile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/6a5d3ecd-3fd8-4ebf-8fb5-6b7a9fb47909.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Kate O&#8217;Connor with her father and coach Michael upon their arrival at Dublin Airport after this year&#8217;s World Indoor Athletics Championships in China. Photo: Sam Barnes\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Not long after the Olympics in Paris, Kate O\u2019Connor pulled up a chair at the kitchen table in her family home in Dundalk alongside her dad, Michael, who has steered her career for the past 15 years. Once they\u2019d dissected the 2024 season, stripping it to the bone for useful lessons, they started planning for 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Kate outlined her goals and, given how high the bar was set, she knew it\u2019d require as much from her dad as herself. \u201cShe says, \u2018Do you think you can deliver this?\u2019\u201d recalls Michael. \u201cThe conversation moved from there. That\u2019s challenging. I haven\u2019t come from knowing everything and you [wonder], \u2018Can I deliver here?\u2019 There\u2019s a lot of responsibility that goes with that. You\u2019re carrying people\u2019s dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dundalk schoolteacher Michael has become an elite coach in the pursuit of Kate\u2019s dreams Kate O&#8217;Connor with her&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[4632,18,19,17,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-209355","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-cathal-dennehy","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115643552133447527","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}