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New Zealand’s Briana Stephenson and Northern Ireland’s Kate O’Connor during the 100m hurdles in the heptathlon event on Tuesday. Photograph: Paul Harding\/Getty Images <\/p>\nIn miserable conditions, Kate O\u2019Connor set Glasgow\u2019s Scotstoun Stadium alight with an electric 200m run to regain the lead after day one of the heptathlon at the Commonwealth Games.<\/p>\n
On a rain-soaked evening, O\u2019Connor defied the conditions to take the 200m victory in 24.14 seconds, just shy of her lifetime best. Taking a glance at the clock, O\u2019Connor raised her arms in delight after crossing the line having endured a difficult result in the shot put.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Connor\u2019s time in the 200m earned her 967 points to put her comfortably back in the gold-medal position on 3,731 points. England\u2019s Jade O\u2019Dowda is second on 3,682, having briefly taken the lead after the shot put but fell back with her 24.93 in the second 200m race.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Connor had struggled to find her best form inside the slippery shot put circle, throwing 12.80 metres in her first attempt which was surpassed by O\u2019Dowda, who threw 13.28m with her first throw. O\u2019Connor improved slightly with her second throw of 12.85m, but finished with a 12.67m.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Dowda had trailed O\u2019Connor by four points after the opening two events, but her shot put result saw her top the standings with 2,789 points, 25 points clear of O\u2019Connor on 2,764.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis evening was tough,\u201d said O\u2019Connor. \u201cI had a nightmare in the shot put to be honest. I\u2019ve not thrown under 14m in a long, long time. So, to throw 12.85m was really gutting.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I just wanted to come out and do a quick 200m, finish the day off on a good note, and I\u2019m delighted with that, in that weather. I\u2019m freezing cold and had about 10 minutes warm-up, so I\u2019m delighted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about the long day due to the spread of events in the heptathlon, O\u2019Connor added: \u201cThis morning, because it wasn\u2019t raining, it worked really well, it was just this evening that was really tough.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never thrown the shot in the rain, I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ve ever run a 200m race in conditions like this before, so it\u2019s something new. It\u2019s just go home now, recover, then hopefully come back and put in another big day tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anna McCauley, also of Northern Ireland, sits sixth overall on 3,511 point having produced an excellent run to win the second 200m race in 24.55 seconds.<\/p>\n
New Zealand’s Briana Stephenson and Northern Ireland’s Kate O’Connor during the 100m hurdles in the heptathlon event on Tuesday. Photograph: Paul Harding\/Getty Images <\/p>\n
In Tuesday\u2019s morning session, O\u2019Connor cleared a high jump best of 1.82m, bringing her points tally to 2,047 points for the four-point lead over O\u2019Dowda.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Connor passed on the opening height of 1.64m, coming in at 1.67m which she cleared on her first attempt. Having cleared the next four heights on her first attempts, she took three efforts to clear 1.82m and then fell just short in all three attempts at 1.85m. O\u2019Dowda posted best height of 1.79m, with New Zealand\u2019s Maddie Wilson the only other athlete to clear 1.83m.<\/p>\n
In the opening event, the 100m hurdles, O\u2019Connor clocked 13.54 seconds for third, just .10 off her personal best. Canada\u2019s Sienna MacDonald took the win in 12.99 seconds, while O\u2019Dowda took second in 13.32.<\/p>\n
This marks O\u2019Connor\u2019s third time representing Northern Ireland at the Commonwealth Games, having won silver four years ago in what was her first international senior medal. She is the favourite to win gold here after England\u2019s two-time defending champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson withdrew last week.<\/p>\n
The heptathlon continues on Wednesday with the remaining three events; the long jump, javelin and 800m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In miserable conditions, Kate O\u2019Connor set Glasgow\u2019s Scotstoun Stadium alight with an electric 200m run to regain the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[76],"tags":[4890,142659,18,19,17,10889,132],"class_list":["post-608863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-athletics-ireland","tag-commonwealth-games","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kate-o-connor","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116999696247308645","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608863","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=608863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}