{"id":464527,"date":"2026-05-02T06:42:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T06:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/464527\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T06:42:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T06:42:23","slug":"kate-oconnor-on-her-gruelling-seven-event-sport-its-so-tough-on-a-womans-body-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/464527\/","title":{"rendered":"Kate O\u2019Connor on her gruelling seven-event sport: \u2018It\u2019s so tough on a woman\u2019s body\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunlight streams on to Kate O\u2019Connor<\/a> early on a Monday, otherwise known as \u201cshot-put day\u201d in the training life of Ireland\u2019s new star of track and field. The serial medal-winner in heptathlon and pentathlon is at home in Dundalk<\/a>, where she has positioned her screen for our video call in front of her window. \u201cI was like, \u2018It\u2019ll be lovely lighting,\u2019 and the sun is blinding me a little bit,\u201d she says, before adjusting to the glare. It is auspiciously gold in colour.<\/p>\n

After a breakthrough year in 2025, O\u2019Connor is growing accustomed to the spotlight. \u201cNothing can really prepare you for the media storm that comes with winning a medal,\u201d she says of her experience last spring, when she claimed bronze at the European Athletics Indoor Championships and silver at the World Athletics Indoor Championships<\/a> in quick succession.<\/p>\n

Since then, her medal haul has expanded to include silver in the World Athletics Championships<\/a> in Tokyo last September and, most recently, world indoors bronze in Torun in Poland in March. With a silver from the 2022 Commonwealth Games \u2013 at which Newry-born O\u2019Connor represents Northern Ireland \u2013 already to her name, a second hand will be required to count any future medals. She is still only 25.<\/p>\n

When I ask what her ambitions are for this summer\u2019s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and the European Athletics Championships<\/a> that follow in Birmingham, O\u2019Connor couldn\u2019t be clearer: she is going for gold.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to win both of them. That\u2019s my mindset now,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

In the gruelling heptathlon \u2013 the outdoors format \u2013 O\u2019Connor competes in 100m hurdles, high jump, shot put and the 200m on the first day, followed by long jump, javelin and 800m on day two. \u201cYou can\u2019t have six strong events and one weak event because you get found out,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

This makes for a packed training regime, which is set out by her father, Michael O\u2019Connor, her main coach, who pops up on our call.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy most important job is dad, and as dad I\u2019m very, very proud. As her coach, I\u2019m very happy with how everything is progressing, but we\u2019re nowhere near her full potential at all yet,\u201d he says. He then knocks his camera off, \u201cbecause Kate gets sick of looking at my face\u201d.<\/p>\n

After shot put on Monday, she has \u201ca big long day\u201d on Tuesday, when she is on the track from 9am to 1pm, then in the gym for two-and-a-half hours, before wrapping up with one of her two weekly sessions of physiotherapy.<\/p>\n

\"KateKate O\u2019Connor in the heptathlon: 100m hurdles, 200m, shot put, long jump, javelin, high jump and 800m. Photographs: Inpho\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have an easy day on a Wednesday, which is just another throw, another high-low [intensity] day on Thursday, a day off on Friday, then Saturday and Sunday are big running days,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy week is really mapped out. My whole life is really mapped out, to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although she and her team are still \u201cclearing up\u201d one injury niggle, she is confident that her body will be \u201c100 per cent healthy\u201d by the summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cPicking up little things now and again is part and parcel of being an athlete. You\u2019re pushing your body to the limit and running that red line all the time. I suppose, for me, it\u2019s just about recognising when it\u2019s too much and being able to pull back at certain times before anything gets too serious.\u201d <\/p>\n

Before battling her way to bronze in Torun<\/a>, she was in pain from a cartilage defect in her knee and dealing with an Achilles tendon issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike, I should have won that competition, but it just wasn\u2019t written in the stars for me to win it, and that\u2019s okay. I competed to the best of my ability on that day and I have no regrets, but I think that was probably the first competition that I\u2019d ever walked away thinking, \u2018Oh, you actually could have.\u2019 I knew in myself that I could have,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt definitely lit a fire in my belly. I don\u2019t want to feel that feeling again. I want to go out and I want to win gold medals.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"KateKate O\u2019Connor battled her way to bronze in the 2026 World Athletics Indoor Championships, despite injuries. Photograph: Morgan Treacy\/Inpho <\/p>\n

Sponsors have understandably been flocking to O\u2019Connor. She\u2019s an \u201cAdidas girl\u201d as of last July and has now signed to become a brand ambassador for Allianz Ireland \u2013 the title sponsor of the Olympic Federation of Ireland and Paralympics Ireland \u2013 alongside sprinters Rhasidat Adeleke and Orla Comerford.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re competing against the best girls in the world, it comes down to those 1 per cents,\u201d she says. \u201cI now have some great support behind me that will hopefully allow me to push on that little bit further.\u201d<\/p>\n

The big target, Los Angeles 2028, is still two years away. At the next Olympic Games, O\u2019Connor will be 27 and, health permitting, should be in the prime of her career.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was a child, I dreamt of winning an Olympic medal and that\u2019s why, for me, it\u2019s the pinnacle. They\u2019re so difficult to win, and because they only come around every four years, they\u2019re just that little bit rarer.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that she turns up to training thinking \u201cI\u2019m doing this hurdle drill to win gold\u201d in 2028, but when she sits down and asks herself what she\u2019s working towards, then the allure of LA glory nestles its way into her mind.<\/p>\n

\"DundalkDundalk heptathlon star Kate O\u2019Connor. Photograph: Barry McCall <\/p>\n

She\u2019ll be 31 when the Brisbane 2032 games take place and is hoping to be there too. \u201cAthletes have become a lot smarter in the way they train and the way they look after their bodies. It\u2019s not about pounding yourself into the ground. It\u2019s a lot more about longevity now. I\u2019m competing against a lot of heptathletes who are in their 30s and still at the top of their game, like Nafissatou Thiam and Katarina Johnson-Thompson, who are showing that you can have a long career. I\u2019m definitely planning on doing that, as long as my body holds up.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connor has already achieved so much. Only two Irish athletes, Sonia O\u2019Sullivan and Catherina McKiernan, have won more individual global medals at senior championships. It was no surprise that by the end of 2025 she had been crowned Athlete of the Year at the National Athletics Awards, and also took the Female Athlete of the Year prize at the Team Ireland Olympic Sports Awards, The Irish Times\/Sport Ireland Sportswoman of the Year title, and the sport award at the Irish Tatler Women of the Year bash.<\/p>\n

These accolades contributed to a \u201cwhirlwind\u201d December in which she also attended her graduation ceremony, having completed her postgraduate degree in communications and public relations from Ulster University and become a full-time athlete only last summer.<\/p>\n

She says she strove to find a balance between not missing out on her winter block of training and \u201cenjoying the moments that came with the medals\u201d she won. \u201cThere was definitely a few tears in December whenever I was, like, so tired and giving my dad the evil eyes because he was still making me work hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Tokyo, she had a homecoming event at her secondary school, St Vincent\u2019s in Dundalk, and when she returned to her primary \u2013 CBS, where her dad teaches \u2013 in April 2025, the pupils there had made \u201cloads of posters and stuff\u201d. She modestly says she found it \u201cdifficult to comprehend\u201d how much people cared at first, but absorbing their pride has made her keener to celebrate, too, and now she gets just how much of a national mood-lifter Irish sporting success can be.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that you maybe don\u2019t realise when you\u2019re the athlete. So many other people are looking at you and thinking, \u2018I would love to do that too\u2019, or \u2018I\u2019ll go for a run\u2019 or just feel a little bit inspired. I\u2019ve definitely learned that there\u2019s a ton of power in sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"KateKate O\u2019Connor was Ireland\u2019s first representative in the Olympic heptathlon at Paris 2024. Photograph: Morgan Treacy\/Inpho <\/p>\n

Ireland didn\u2019t have a huge tradition in multi-events \u2013 at Paris 2024, O\u2019Connor became the country\u2019s first representative in the Olympic heptathlon \u2013 but she could be the catalyst for one.<\/p>\n

\u201cYoung kids have so many different role models to look up to now. It\u2019s not like there\u2019s just a great 800m runner or a great 400m runner or a great long-jumper. There\u2019s someone in every event. When I was younger, I didn\u2019t have a heptathlete to look up to, and I\u2019m so happy that\u2019s changed now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born on December 12th, 2000, she started running at St Gerard\u2019s Athletic Club in Dundalk from the age of seven. In 2012, she turned 12 on the 12th day of the 12th month of the 12th year of the century \u2013 a numerical synchronicity that attracted local media attention. One newspaper clipping, available online<\/a>, quotes both her mother, Valerie O\u2019Connor, and the birthday girl, who reveals she is pleased to have \u201cgot off homework\u201d on the day.<\/p>\n

She remembers the fuss. \u201cIt must have turned 12 o\u2019clock at school and I was brought out to the hall and I had to make a wish and there were photographers and stuff. Then I came home later and there were photographers at my house as well. And, yeah, I know that photo is floating around the internet,\u201d she says, noting that she \u201cdidn\u2019t know how to smile properly\u201d then.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connor, who is the eldest of three children, was described aged 12 as \u201ca keen athlete\u201d who plays piano and flute and does Irish dancing. She \u201cwasn\u2019t great at the piano\u201d and could never win at Irish dancing, \u201cwhich probably ultimately put me off in the end,\u201d she says, but she was good at the flute and also did tennis and swimming.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was definitely pushed by my parents to do lots of different things and explore lots of different avenues. I think that it was very good for my confidence. Now, whenever parents ask me for advice, I say it\u2019s a great idea to be involved in multiple sports and meet different friends. I loved having the opportunity to try lots of different things, and then I decided which one I liked the most and was best at, rather than only going with one and having to stick at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"KateKate O’Connor with her parents, Michael and Valerie, after winning athlete of the year at the 2025 National Athletics Awards in Dublin. Photograph: Sam Barnes\/Sportsfile <\/p>\n

It was also at age 12 that she started to do 800m training on her nearest athletics track, in Newry. \u201cMy dad was getting me to do long jump and javelin alongside that, but I definitely didn\u2019t have the idea of multi-events being the end goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ireland\u2019s new fastest man Benji Richardson: \u2018This is a country I\u2019ve always wanted to run for\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Britain\u2019s Jessica Ennis (now Ennis-Hill) became her first heptathlete role model when she won gold at London 2012. \u201cI saw someone who was running and jumping and throwing, and that was what I was doing at All-Ireland Championships. Nobody else was running around like a headless chicken like me, but I loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says she\u2019s not the same person as the teen who competed at the Schools International Pentathlon in Glasgow, where she remembers \u201cbawling crying\u201d when one event went badly. \u201cIt\u2019s just something that I had to go through year after year and slowly start to figure out. If something doesn\u2019t go well, you\u2019ve got to park it and accept it and just move on. You can be upset after the competition. But when you\u2019re competing, you\u2019re competing. You have got to keep your head in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now that\u2019s one of the skills that has allowed her to flourish as a multi-events athlete eyeing the top of the podium.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that I\u2019m definitely a very mentally strong person. That\u2019s something that I\u2019ve learned about myself. I deal really well with high-pressure situations. It\u2019s not that I like being in them, I hate being in them, but I can navigate them quite well. Like, for example, if I\u2019m on the third [and final] attempt of a high jump that I should definitely get over, my track record does show that I can get myself into the right headspace to do what I need to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019s a good learner, too. \u201cI think that I\u2019m a nice athlete to coach. I love learning new things. I love whenever someone brings me a new drill or sets me a new challenge. The beauty of multi-events is that there\u2019s always something new to be working on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DundalkDundalk heptathlon star Kate O\u2019Connor. Photograph: Barry McCall <\/p>\n

Alongside her father, she works with coaches Dave Sweeney on the javelin and Tom Reynolds on hurdles, with the team also including physiotherapist Kerry Kirk and strength and conditioning coach Robbie Bremner. Incorporating variety into her exercises is important. \u201cSometimes I can find the throws a little bit \u2013 this is awful to say \u2013 but a little bit boring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Javelin has, nevertheless, been regarded as her strongest skill to date, though a string of personal bests across her events means it is no longer \u201cjust one outlier\u201d. Her medals in the one-day indoor pentathlons, which exclude the javelin, prove that too.<\/p>\n

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The heptathlon remains the event she fell in love with, she says, though she has yet to master how best to sleep between the two days of competition, and its \u201clong and gruelling\u201d nature means she doesn\u2019t fancy the idea of it becoming a decathlon (the men\u2019s outdoor format).<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that multi-eventers are amazing, and heptathletes specifically are amazing, but the event is already so tough. Like, body-wise, it\u2019s so tough on a woman\u2019s body to train as hard as we do for as many events as we do and to be as good as we are. In some of the events, some of the girls are just as good as the individual eventers. That\u2019s the standard that multi-eventers hold themselves to. I definitely wouldn\u2019t want to be introducing the discus or the pole vault into my regime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Television commentators often remark upon how warm heptathletes seem towards each other on the lap of honour they do after all the points have been tallied and the medals decided.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the competition, we\u2019re not like sprinters, we\u2019re not giving each other death stares, but it is very, very competitive. You are in it for yourself. But at the end, it\u2019s so true, there\u2019s a lot of camaraderie. I know how hard I\u2019ve worked to perform, and I would expect the same from all those other girls, so we have a lot of respect for each other. If you see another multi-eventer get hurt and not finish, you can really feel for them, because there\u2019s so much blood, sweat, and tears that goes into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"KateKate O\u2019Connor celebrates with Sofie Dokter, Anna Hall and Adrianna Su\u0142ek-Schubert at the 2026 World Athletics Indoor Championships. Photograph: Morgan Treacy\/Inpho <\/p>\n

Her rivals include Anna Hall of the US, who is the reigning world champion, and Sofie Dokter of the Netherlands, who eclipsed Hall to take gold at the indoors in Torun. \u201cAll I can do is work as hard as I can and then go out and execute as well as I can,\u201d she says. \u201cIt can be scary whenever you think about how many great girls there are in the sport right now, but I can\u2019t control what they do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like all elite sportspeople, O\u2019Connor made sacrifices when she was growing up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith friends going over to friends\u2019 houses, or going out with the girls, those things, I put athletics first. It was always something that I chose to do, but that doesn\u2019t mean that it was easy or that I loved doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, she \u201cwouldn\u2019t change it for the world\u201d, she says.<\/p>\n

She is now in a relationship with Georgie Kelly, a footballer who plays for Carlisle United in northwest England. He\u2019s over in Dundalk when we speak and will come to her training camp in Portugal when she relocates there soon. Finding the time to be together is not without its challenges, but when she is able to visit him, she \u201ccan kind of shut off\u201d, she says. \u201cI\u2019m not Kate-the-athlete any more, I\u2019m just Kate-the-person, and that\u2019s the way I like to see it.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0There are some things even Rory McIlroy\u2019s fancy wearables cannot measureOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Doing her postgrad was also part of her desire to be \u201cKate-the-person\u201d. She was only six months into her undergrad in sport development and coaching at Sheffield Hallam University when the pandemic struck and she had to finish the degree from home. \u201cI never really got the opportunity to develop myself socially,\u201d she says. Ulster University appealed not just because of its indoor training facility, but because it offered the prospect of making new friends.<\/p>\n

She isn\u2019t sure what she wants to do post-retirement \u2013 she \u201cwouldn\u2019t rule out\u201d coaching, and has a \u201cbig interest in doing some sort of commentary\u201d \u2013 but she knows her education will stand to her, whatever happens. \u201cHopefully, after this I\u2019ll go into something I love.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, her love for what she is doing now \u2013 from training and travel to competing and medalling \u2013 radiates from her face. \u201cI can\u2019t wait for the summer to compete outdoors,\u201d says Kate-the-athlete. \u201cBecause that\u2019s where I can really come out and shine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photographs: Barry McCall<\/p>\n

Assistant: Rio Carlin Rosanio<\/p>\n

Styling: Holly Farrell<\/p>\n

Make-up: Zoe Clark<\/p>\n

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