Kate O’Connor dreaming bigger again after perfect season ends in Tokyo

The last thing Kate O’Connor will be thinking about right now will be any more running, jumping or throwing. Well before her silver medal heroics in the heptathlon, she’d already planned a few weeks travelling around Japan. And now that her dream year is complete, that will feel impeccably well timed.

O’Connor also knows it won’t be long before people are thinking about what she does next. Starting with herself, then her father and coach Michael, and the rest of the coaching and backup team, including Tom Reynolds, Dave Sweeney and her physio Kerry Kirk.

Her World Championship silver in Tokyo brought her medal tally from her four multi-event competitions this year to the perfect score of four. It started with her breakthrough indoor performances in the pentathlon back in March when, just 12 days apart, she won the bronze medal in the European Indoor Championships, then upgraded to silver on the World indoor stage.

They were the first senior medals won by any Irish athlete in a multi-event, and O’Connor then made another breakthrough in the heptathlon, winning gold at the World University Games in July, where she improved her Irish record to 6,487 points.

After improving that record to 6,714 points in Tokyo, O’Connor has already raised the bar significantly going into 2026, where the two big competitions already in the diary will be another World Indoor Championships in Poland next March, then the European Championships in Birmingham next August.

She’s already got some added incentive for Birmingham, after missing the last two European Championships in 2024 and 2014.

She also knows it won’t be long until people start talking about Los Angeles in 2028.

The celebrations have begun for Kate O’Connor in Tokyo!! 🥈🙌
(📸 - @MorganTreacy ) pic.twitter.com/5HzsKX7HT5
— Inpho Photography (@Inphosports) September 21, 2025

“The indoor season was a complete dream, but I wanted to show I could really carry that form into the outdoor season,” O’Connor said of her motivations coming to Tokyo. “My expectations for myself changed this year, and they’ve probably changed again now. I think I’ve set myself up really well for the next three years, heading for the Olympics, and I’m prepared to put my head down and work really hard.”

Last year O’Connor also became Ireland’s first representative in the Olympic heptathlon, where she finished 14th. Still, she’s stepped things up considerably since – pointing towards the higher expectations she’s set for herself, but also the expectations of the team around her.

At 24, she’s the same age as Anna Hall from the US, who won the gold in Tokyo on 6,888 after leading the way from the second event. There was a tie for third between Taliyah Brooks of the United States and defending champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson of Britain, both on 6,581.

Silver medallist Kate O'Connor, gold medallist US athlete Anna Hall, and joint bronze medallists US athlete Taliyah Brooks and Britain's Katarina Johnson-Thompson on the podium. Photograph: Getty Images

Johnson-Thompson is 31, Brooks is 30, at the latter end of their careers, although Johnson-Thompson will definitely be back for more glory in Birmingham.

Going into the last of the seven events on Saturday, the 800m, O’Connor only needed to run close to her personal best of 2:10.46 to seal the silver medal.

Despite nursing a knee injury sustained in the long jump earlier on Saturday, she once again improved her lifetime best to 2:09.56.

O’Connor had produced her fourth personal best in the javelin just over two hours before the 800m.

And despite the injury scare, she wasn’t even thinking about not starting the 800m.

“No, never, and I was never going to just settle for a bronze medal either. That was probably the easier option, but I was always going to fight 100 per cent to the line, sore knee or not. And I managed to pull another PB out there [in the 800m].”

She was also quick to credit her coaching team, once again, highlighting the importance of being in the optimal training environment, no matter where that is. Back in 2020, O’Connor had initially planned to go to the University of Texas at Austin, where Rhasidat Adeleke has pursued her career, before deciding she would be better served by staying at home.

“I have a team around me and they don’t just support me as an athlete, they love me as a person,” she said. “There’s times my mind is full of doubt but with people like that around, they fill you with what you need to be filled with.

“Yesterday [Friday] I enjoyed every single second of the competition, today not so much so. I hurt my knee in the long jump, and it was just a real fight to the line. In the javelin, I did one warm-up throw and was just hoping for the best.

“But the team around me filled me with so much confidence today, because I didn’t have a whole lot of confidence after the long jump. I wasn’t really able to run, to walk up and down stairs, and yeah, it was just pure grit and determination and want for a medal that I managed to pull myself through.”

Her silver medal indoors ended the 19-year wait since Derval O’Rourke last won a medal for Ireland on that stage, with her gold in the 60m hurdles in 2006, O’Connor also becoming only the third Irish woman to win a World Indoor medal after Sonia O’Sullivan and O’Rourke.

Now just the sixth Irish athlete to win a World Championship medal outdoors, the question some people are asking is not if but when her next medal is likely to come. Watch this space.