{"id":241343,"date":"2025-12-19T17:38:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T17:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/241343\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T17:38:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T17:38:11","slug":"kate-oconnor-named-irish-times-sport-ireland-sportswoman-of-the-year-for-2025-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/241343\/","title":{"rendered":"Kate O\u2019Connor named Irish Times\/Sport Ireland Sportswoman of the Year for 2025 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a good thing Kate O\u2019Connor<\/a> is so adept at the multi-events. After a long year of running, jumping and throwing beyond all previous measures, O\u2019Connor was crowned The Irish Times\/Sport Ireland Sportswoman of the Year for 2025.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s fast becoming familiar with such accolades, and just like her medal success on four major championship stages, O\u2019Connor is taking it all in her graceful stride.<\/p>\n

Even with the all-star cast assembled at Dublin\u2019s Shelbourne Hotel at lunchtime on Friday there was no disputing O\u2019Connor\u2019s top prize. She repeatedly went where no Irish woman or indeed man had gone before, winning major multi-event medals in the indoor pentathlon and the outdoor heptathlon, smashing her own Irish records along thew way.<\/p>\n

\"KateKate O\u2019Connor after being announced as Irish Times\/Sport Ireland Sportswoman of the Year for 2025. Photograph: Tom Maher\/Inpho <\/p>\n

The 25-year-old from Dundalk has already scooped end-of-year awards at events hosted by Athletics Ireland and the Olympic Federation of Ireland, with the prospect of more to come. Last weekend she also graduated with an MA in Communications from Ulster University, and in receiving her award spoke of what such recognition meant away from the track and field.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just been such an insane year,\u201d she said. \u201cDuring indoors I just got on a roll and just started to pick up medals,\u00a0I enjoyed that feeling and I didn\u2019t want to stop. And hopefully it doesn\u2019t stop for the next few years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been very busy, and I suppose nothing prepares you for the storm that comes after a year like I\u2019ve had. I kind of thought that I would take a couple of weeks off, I would do all the media stuff, and then that would be it over. And it certainly was not like that at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I\u2019ve just tried to enjoy it all as much as I can. Like the year has been incredible, and I know this is just part and parcel of it. And it\u2019s lovely to see how much people care about what I did this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just lovely to see the buzz it brought everybody at home, because we worked so hard for it at times. And I think that\u2019s the beauty of the heptathlon, everyone can buy into the story at times.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0In pictures: How Kate O\u2019Connor won a heptathlon silver medal at the World ChampionshipsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\"SportswomanSportswoman of the Year for 2025 Kate O\u2019Connor and Outstanding Contribution Winner Cora Staunton. Photograph: Tom Maher\/Inpho <\/p>\n

Mayo footballer Cora Staunton was also presented with the Outstanding Achievement Award, the four-time All-Ireland winner receiving a standing ovation. She made her senior debut for the county back in 1995, aged just 13.<\/p>\n

Staunton\u2019s stellar career also saw her win six All-Ireland ladies club football championships with her club Carnacon and 11 All Star awards, before her retirement in 2019.<\/p>\n

On many levels it was another unprecedented year of success for Irish women in sport, on the national and international stage, O\u2019Connor among the 15 monthly award winners, most of whom were also assembled here. Still after the avalanche of other firsts and emergence of rising stars, O\u2019Connor stood alone.<\/p>\n

Her World Championship silver in the heptathlon in Tokyo brought her medal tally from her four multi-event competitions this year to the perfect score of four. It started with her breakthrough indoor performances in the pentathlon back in March, when she bronze medal in the European Indoor Championships, then upgraded to silver on the World indoor stage.<\/p>\n

They were the first senior medals won by any Irish athlete in a multi-event, and O\u2019Connor then made another breakthrough in the heptathlon, winning gold at the World University Games in July, where she improved her Irish record to 6,487 points \u2013 bettering that again to 6,714 points in Tokyo.<\/p>\n

Her father and coach Michael was also present, and is also juggling end-of-year awards, having being recognised by World Athletics with their annual coaching award last month.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connor joins previous outright winners from athletics in Derval O\u2019Rourke (2006) and Olive Loughnane (2009), who like O\u2019Connor, also made the global medal podiums in their successful years.<\/p>\n

The 15 monthly winners were spread across eight sports, including six newcomers: boxer Aoife O\u2019Rourke matched her sister Lisa\u2019s achievement in becoming a world champion, and world record-breaking ultra-runner Caitr\u00edona Jennings joined rower Sin\u00e9ad on the monthly roll of honour.<\/p>\n

Basketball\u2019s Hazel Finn, the MVP in the National Cup final, and rugby\u2019s Aoife Wafer, the Six Nations\u2019 player of the tournament, picked up their first awards too, as did Kelly Brady from Athlone Town, and double world Para Athletics sprint champion Orla Comerford.<\/p>\n

Others were multiple award winners before, including two Katies \u2013 Taylor and McCabe \u2013 both also former sportswomen of the year, Taylor on five occasions.<\/p>\n

Katie-George Dunlevy made the monthly list for the eighth time, Sarah Healy sharing the March award with O\u2019Connor after winning European Indoor gold over 3,000m. Lara Gillespie enjoyed a superb 2025 when World Track Cycling gold in Chile, Fiona Murtagh making the rowing podium at world and European level.<\/p>\n

In the 22nd year of the awards, which stretch back to horse racing winner Cathy Gannon in 2004, the Sports Editor of The Irish Times, Noel O\u2019Reilly, paid tribute to all the 2025 winners.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thank them and salute them for making it such a memorable and special year,\u201d he said, \u201cand we wish them continuing success in the year to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport Patrick O\u2019Donovan and\u00a0Dr \u00dana May, Sport Ireland CEO, were also in attendance to present the awards.<\/p>\n

Monthly winners<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0Dec\u2013mber 2024<\/b>: Ellen Walshe (Swimming);\u00a0January<\/b>: Hazel Finn (Basketball);\u00a0February<\/b>: Lara Gillespie (Cycling);\u00a0March<\/b>: Kate O\u2019Connor and Sarah Healy (Athletics);\u00a0April<\/b>: Aoife Wafer (Rugby);\u00a0May<\/b>: Katie McCabe (Soccer);\u00a0June<\/b>: Fiona Murtagh (Rowing);\u00a0July<\/b>: Katie Taylor (Boxing);\u00a0August<\/b>: Katie George Dunlevy and Linda Kelly (Cycling);\u00a0September<\/b>: Aoife O\u2019Rourke (Boxing) and Orla Comerford (Athletics);\u00a0October<\/b>: Kelly Brady (Soccer);\u00a0November<\/b>: Caitr\u00edona Jennings (Athletics).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a good thing Kate O\u2019Connor is so adept at the multi-events. After a long year of running,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,19,17,10889,75255,132,127049],"class_list":{"0":"post-241343","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-kate-o-connor","12":"tag-sport-ireland","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-sportswoman-of-the-year-award"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241343","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=241343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}