{"id":73460,"date":"2025-09-19T13:36:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T13:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/73460\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T13:36:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T13:36:08","slug":"kate-oconnor-moves-into-silver-medal-position-at-world-championships-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/73460\/","title":{"rendered":"Kate O\u2019Connor moves into silver medal position at World Championships \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kate O\u2019Connor<\/a> will start the second day of the pentathlon in silver medal position after a stunning night of action at the World Championships<\/a> in Tokyo in which the Irish star secured three personal bests in her four events.<\/p>\n

The 24-year old finished the day on 3,906 points, with Anna Hall of the United States leading the way on 4,154 and Britain\u2019s Katarina Johnson-Thompson in third on 3,893.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connor clocked a third lifetime best of 24.07 seconds in the 200 metres, the fourth and final event on day one, to move from the bronze medal position to silver going into Saturday, which features the javelin, her favourite event, in between the long jump and 800m.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0In pictures: Kate O\u2019Connor moves into silver medal position Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

After setting bests in the 100m hurdles and high jump, O\u2019Connor started first heat of the 200m in lane seven. Getting an excellent start, her 24.07 was enough for second place, the win in that heat going to Emma Oosterwegel from the Netherlands in 24.03.<\/p>\n

It took O\u2019Connor\u2019s tally to 3,906, moving ahead of three-time Olympic champion Nafi Thiam from Belgium, who dropped back to sixth on 3,818 points, after Thiam clocked 25.52 in the same heat.<\/p>\n

Stepping into the shot put circle, O\u2019Connor took over sole possession of third spot after throwing a best of 14.37m in the first round, not far off her best of 14.61m.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connor had moved into a share of third place after the second event, setting a PB of 1.86 metres in the high jump.<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old cleared her first five heights at the first attempt, then cleared 1.86m on her second attempt \u2013 improving her previous best of 1.84m. She came close in her three efforts at 1.89m.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Kate O’Connor’s ready for the main stage in TokyoOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Only two women cleared that next height of 1.89, Hall moving into the lead ahead Thiam.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connor also set a personal best in the first event of the day, the 100m hurdles.<\/p>\n

\"Ireland’sIreland\u2019s Kate O\u2019Connor in action in the 100m hurdles. Photograph: Morgan Treacy\/Inpho <\/p>\n

She was drawn alongside Thiam and Johnson-Thompson, and held her own to clock 13.44 seconds, improving her previous best of 13.57.<\/p>\n

The heat was won by Britain\u2019s Jade O\u2019Dowda in 13.34, also a personal best, while Johnson-Thompson was given the same time as O\u2019Connor, which earned them both 1,059 points.<\/p>\n

On a notably cooler and less humid night inside Japan\u2019s National Stadium, three Irish athletes also went in the heats of the men\u2019s 5,000m, with Darragh McElhinney coming closest to making Saturday\u2019s final with an excellent effort in the second heat.<\/p>\n

With only the top eight from each progressing, McElhinney was still in contention around the last bend, sitting in 10th. After the slow early pace, there were plenty of big kickers in contention, and McElhinney just missed out in 10th, the Cork athlete running 13:42.56. <\/p>\n

The win there went to Binjam Meheny from Ethiopia in 13:41.52, defending champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen from Norway claiming the last qualifying spot in eighth.<\/p>\n

Andrew Coscoran was back on the track two days after running the 1,500m final, and finished 19th in 13:56,95. In the first heat, Brian Fay went out hard, sitting in fourth for the opening laps, before dropping back to 17th in 13:31.12, the win there going to Isaac Kimeli from Belgium in 13:13.05.<\/p>\n

The 5,000m final is set for Sunday\u2019s closing session (11.47am Irish time).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kate O\u2019Connor will start the second day of the pentathlon in silver medal position after a stunning night…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,19,17,10889,132,9715],"class_list":{"0":"post-73460","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-sports","13":"tag-world-athletics-championships"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73460","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=73460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}