\u201cup and down\u201d Friday evening session<\/a> at the Alexander Stadium. Back on track Saturday morning, shock was the first face she pulled.<\/p>\nIn her opening long jump effort, O\u2019Connor was in disbelief as she climbed out of the sandpit. It was good. Very good. But how good?<\/p>\n
The scoreboard confirmed her suspicions that something special had been leapt. 6.55m. A lifetime best. A lifetime best by 5cm. The wind reading of +2.0m\/s was both favourable and legal. She roared and swung the arms in pumped-up delight.<\/p>\n
The long jump has the potential to be the most debilitating and destabilising of the heptathlon\u2019s seven disciplines. Failure to put a mark on the board in the opening round brings stress, strain, and deep anxiety when returning to the runway for a second time.<\/p>\n
The room for risk shrinks considerably. Safety battles with distance for priority. A ceiling is placed on what a heptathlete can achieve.<\/p>\n
Scoring so well so early in the competition allowed O\u2019Connor to relax for her remaining two jumps. It was immaterial what she did or didn\u2019t leap.<\/p>\n
There was no bettering that opening mark, 6.55m equating to 1,023 points. Her new 4,949 standing shoved her 125 points ahead of where she was five events into her 6,714 national record and World Championship silver 12 months ago.<\/p>\n
In retrospect, maybe we shouldn\u2019t have been surprised at the breaking of new ground in the sandpit.<\/p>\n
When asked on Friday night which of the following day\u2019s three events she was most looking forward to, the long jump was eventually singled out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to do a big long jump,\u201d she said. \u201cI feel like I haven\u2019t had an opportunity to do that this outdoor season.\u201d Her gold medal rivals came together and came strong with their third attempt.<\/p>\n
Annik K\u00e4lin\u2019s 6.81m, off a +3.8m\/s tailwind, elevated her into first. Dokter\u2019s 6.51m maintained her overnight silver medal position. The pair sat just five and six points clear of O\u2019Connor.<\/p>\n
Overnight leader Adrianna Sulek-Schubert teetered with collapse. Her first two jumps were fouled. The board was finally and successfully navigated. Her anything-will-do 6.23m salvaged effort relegated the Pole to fifth and 60 points adrift of O\u2019Connor.<\/p>\n
Oosterwegel was the sole other athlete, along with the Irishwoman, to leap a lifetime best. A 6.50m jump positioned her 77 points behind O\u2019Connor. She closed that gap with 51.49m on her second javelin spear.<\/p>\n
A 56-plus thrower on her day, the relief for the Irish camp was that Oosterwegel\u2019s final launch brought no improvement.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Connor\u2019s 50.16m was registered in the opening round. It has her 69 points ahead of where she was in Tokyo. Her 49.96m second throw came up just shy of that first mark. Wind conditions hampered the Dundalk native from getting out to her typical 52-plus range.<\/p>\n
On Saturday morning in Birmingham, it was not required.<\/p>\n
She will know, down to the last millisecond, what is required come 7.45pm Saturday evening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She has more than a chance. She\u2019s in control. Kate O\u2019Connor\u2019s morning work moved her in the right…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[8377,9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":["post-639126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-athletics","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117101172643774116","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639126","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=639126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}