It is often only in retrospect that we see the shape of history, the slow accumulation of moments that lead to something bigger. Ireland’s record in multi-events has, for the longest time, been a void. No real history to speak of, no real expectation of success. It was a discipline where Irish athletes could participate but not contend. Until now.
Until, 123.ie Brand Ambassador, Kate O’Connor.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen, of course. Not when she stepped off the track after the long jump, eyes stinging, knowing she had done all she could, yet still found herself sitting in fourth. Not when she braced herself for an interview she never wanted to give—a fourth-place finisher’s interview, the one where you say all the right things about taking positives, about building for the future, but knowing that fourth is still fourth.
But then, the 800m changed everything.
There are times when sport is mathematics—split times, points margins, performance indexing. There are times when it is something else entirely.
O’Connor entered the final event knowing exactly what needed to be done. Jade O’Dowda, her former training partner, was 34 points ahead, roughly translating to a 2.4-second gap over 800m. That is not a margin—it is a mountain.
The original plan had been strategic. Stick behind O’Dowda, make the decisive move late. But when the gun went off, instinct overruled logic.
"I went out and I found myself behind the Italian girl who has a PB of 2:08. And I was running down the back straight and in that moment, the original plan went out the window. I decided that if she was going to run 2:08, I was going to run a 2:08 with her, or at least try my best to."
It was not patience. It was not calculation. It was absolute conviction.
"The whole way around I just had that thought process like, how much do you want this medal?" she said later. And in what must surely be one of the great mid-race moments of self-coaching, she said it out loud. "How much do you want this medal?"
She had no idea where O’Dowda was, no sense of whether the plan was working, only that she had to run for her life.
"I crossed the line and by the time I had turned around to check where she was, she had also just crossed the line. I was just kind of lying on the track watching the board, waiting for times to come up. I didn’t think I’d done it. I had no idea. I was just lying there."
Then, a time flashed up on the screen, a time that changed everything.
"Suddenly, a time came up from another girl and I realised that it was over the two and a half seconds. So I had realised that I’d done it. And that was another amazing feeling."
The numbers confirm it: a personal best of 2:11.42, a full 4.5 seconds clear of O’Dowda. Bronze was secured. An Irish multi-event athlete on a senior podium for the first time.
Sport often elevates reluctant pioneers, those who do not actively seek to carve paths but end up doing so anyway. O’Connor does not talk like a history-maker, but history is following her regardless.
"I suppose it's probably something that I don't appreciate enough at the moment because I'm in it and I'm the one doing it," she said. "I think probably it'll be in years to come, whether I'm still doing the event and looking back on it or whether it's not till I retire and look back on what I've done that I'll fully appreciate that I've potentially paved a pathway for other athletes to follow."
She is correct, of course. Legacy is easier to measure in hindsight. But whether she appreciates it now or not, the next generation of Irish heptathletes and pentathletes have a precedent. The once-empty record books now have an entry.
And she is not doing it alone. Sarah Healy’s gold in the 3000m mirrored their shared podium moment at the 2019 European U20 Championships.
"Sonia O’Sullivan actually sent me a message after the competition and she said something along the lines of, ‘The 2019 class is coming out in full force.’"
This is not an isolated moment of success. It is the culmination of a generational shift.
"Me and Sarah have kind of grown up together and maybe shown that the path isn’t always extremely on an upward trajectory. To stand on the podium together again, five years later, just shows the work we’ve put in and how far we’ve come."
There is, in all elite athletes, a particular brand of self-belief. Sometimes, it is quiet and unshakable. Other times, it manifests as an unwavering confidence that anything is possible—no matter how improbable.
"You maybe know Danielle Hill. Now this is a bit delusional of me," O’Connor laughed. "But we’re going to race in the pool. She’s an Olympic swimmer. Just a way. Yes. I feel like I could be somewhat close to her in the pool. People tell me there’s no chance, but I think there’s a chance."
For context, Danielle Hill is not just any swimmer. She is Ireland’s fastest female swimmer, a multiple-time national record holder, and an Olympian. She competed at Tokyo 2020 in the 100m backstroke and 50m freestyle, having set an Irish record of 1:00.18 in the former event. More recently, in 2024, she became the first Irish female swimmer in 27 years to win a European long-course title, claiming gold in the 50m backstroke and silver in the 100m.
A race between O’Connor and Hill would be, at the very least, entertaining. One is a world-class multi-eventer, a European bronze medallist with an engine built for endurance across seven disciplines. The other is a pure specialist, honed for speed in the water. The outcome? Likely a foregone conclusion, but that’s not really the point.
Because what this exchange reveals isn’t naivety but the essence of what makes O’Connor an elite athlete. It’s the same belief that saw her push beyond expectation in that 800m, refusing to concede a medal she had not yet lost. The same confidence that made her take off at the gun, abandoning caution, committing fully to the moment.
It is not about whether she can out-touch an Olympic swimmer in the pool. It is about the mindset that tells her she could.
The moment is already gone. There is no time to dwell. In 12 days, O’Connor will land in China for the World Indoor Championships in Nanjing.
"The opportunities, when in shape, don’t come around too often," she said. "So why not go out while you’re enjoying it, while you’re healthy, and grab everything?"
It is not blind optimism. She will enter with the second-highest pentathlon score of any athlete competing, a tally that would have won gold in Glasgow last year.
The reigning world champion Noor Vidts is absent. So is Sofie Dokter, the silver medallist from Apeldoorn. The biggest challenge is Saga Vanninen, the new European champion.
But the gap is closing. And if Apeldoorn proved anything, it’s that when the moment arrives, O’Connor does not hesitate.
"People chase these medals their whole career," she said. "I have a medal now in my closet that no one can ever take away from me."
But this is not the final chapter. The past suggests that much.
Four years ago, she made history in the U20s. Three years ago, she took silver at the Commonwealth Games. Last year, she became Ireland’s first-ever Olympic heptathlete.
Now, she is a European medallist at senior level.
And yet, the next question becomes obvious: what’s next?
