Kate O'Connor secures World Indoor bronze in Torun

Kate O'Connor of Ireland celebrates winning bronze. Pic: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile

By now it’s become habitual, but that shouldn’t diminish the scale of what Kate O’Connor is achieving. At the World Indoor Championships in Torun, Poland, the 25-year-old Dundalk athlete claimed another multi-events medal for Ireland on the global stage, winning bronze in the women’s pentathlon.

It was her fifth consecutive medal in as many championships across the last 13 months and her tally of 4839 points smashed the Irish record of 4718 that she’d set at the European Indoors last year. Gold went to Sofie Dokter of the Netherlands with 4888 points, with US world heptathlon champion Anna Hall second with 4860.

The medal for O’Connor follows the bronze she won at last year’s European Indoors, silver at the World Indoors, gold at the World University Games and silver at the Tokyo World Championships.

The latest came against a difficult backdrop, O’Connor aggravating an injury in her knee cartilage a fortnight ago and more recently struggling with an Achilles tendon issue. “I’m not going to lie, it’s been really stressful,” she said. “I even came here with a stye in my eye, which I’ve never had before.

“With the knee I literally couldn’t walk, I had to take a week and a half off. But if you want to win gold medals, you’ve got to run that red line. I'd worked really hard at training and I knew that I was in good shape, and I just tried to keep myself in the right mindset.” This latest medal puts her in exalted company. Only two Irish athletes, Sonia O'Sullivan and Catherina McKiernan, have won more individual global medals at senior championships than O'Connor and, at 25, there could be many more yet to come.

She had to fight hard for it, negotiating nerve-wracking moments in the high jump and long jump and going into the 800m second in the points standings, with little to choose between the leading three. But once again, when the pressure was at its greatest, she produced.

“I put a tonne of pressure on myself,” she said. “I know other people are expecting too but I think ultimately I put the most pressure on myself. I've been dealing with that for a long, long time, and I just try and keep a strong mind.” O’Connor would have needed a herculean effort to claw her way up to first in the 800m, with Dokter’s points advantage equating to over five seconds and her PB just one second slower than the Dutch athlete. But to hold off Hall for the silver, O’Connor needed to finish within 2.5 seconds of the US star – no easy feat given Hall had a PB eight seconds quicker than her.

O’Connor ran with Hall firmly in her sights from the outset, the American blasting through the opening 400m in 59 seconds, the Irishwoman passing in 62. He gave it an almighty effort in trying to claw back the deficit over the latter half but was unable to do so, with Hall hitting the line in 2:06.32, O’Connor next with an indoor PB of 2:10.26, and Dokter fifth with 2:12.27 – close enough to take gold.

Throughout the day at the Kujawsko-Pomorska Arena, she’d been going back and forth to the side of the track, where the man who's coached her for almost 20 years, and who's been her dad for 25, offered technical insights and words of encouragement.

Michael O'Connor has played a priceless role in her development, steering the ship in her coaching team, which also includes Tom Reynolds and Dave Sweeney. He spent the day sitting trackside, wrought with nerves, aware that it was now largely out of his hands. But the athlete he built is one impeccably equipped to deal with such pressurised moments, the kind that might break more fragile minds.

No multi-events competition is ever perfect and midway through the high jump, O'Connor's medal chance was in peril. Two failures at 1.81m left her in dire need of a last-ditch clearance, and the pressure only mounted when she slipped on a mat as she was setting off for that crucial third attempt.

But she swiftly reset, took a moment to compose her breathing, and just as it had been throughout 2025, she again came up clutch.

That clearance proved essential, netting another 38 points and keeping her within touching distance of the medals. While she cut a frustrated figure minutes later after failing three times at 1.84m, that feeling was quickly exorcised ahead of the shot put.

“I think a younger kid would have carried a lot of disappointment into the shot and probably not performed, but I've learned a lot,” she said.

O'Connor came out swinging there, launching 14.59m in the opening effort, then surpassing her PB with 14.65m in the second round. Then she was better again in the third, her exultant roar echoing around the arena as the shot landed on the mat 14.70m away. The longest throw of her career, right when she needed it most.

That left her sitting third, with just 67 points covering the leading four. O’Connor had almost four hours to kill before the long jump and she spent much of that time resting on an inflatable mattress and pillow that she'd brought to the arena, keen to excavate the one-percent gains that might add up to this kind of seismic sporting achievement.

In the long jump, she opened with a foul, heaping the pressure on her second jump, which was a safe and solid 6.17m. But in the third round she managed 6.38m, not far off her best of 6.50m, which saw her move up to second in the standings.

From there, all that was left was to empty the tank over 800m, and once she reached the line she was rewarded with another piece of precious metal – the kind she’s making a magnificent habit of accruing.

It's almost six years since O'Connor carved a piece of history for Irish athletics by winning a European U-20 medal in the multi-events – an indication of her rare and outlying talent. That vast potential that was prevalent then has since been nurtured to perfection, the rocky path to senior success navigated with impressive resilience.

In Nanjing last year, O’Connor broke a 19-year medal drought for the Irish at the World Indoors, and she has proven that was no flash in the pan, racking up just the 12th medal for Ireland across the 41-year history of these championships.

She might not be at her peak just yet, but she’s edging closer all the time, continuing to progress as the 2028 LA Olympics loom on the distant horizon.

“It's just really exciting to continue building and I keep saying that 2028 is the ultimate goal,” she said. “I wanted the gold, but I came away with a bronze medal at the World Championships, a national record. I'm proud of this.” Training for the first time this year as a full-time athlete, she’s now stronger and fitter and faster. For Irish athletics, she continues to carve a path where none had existed before. And with each achievement like this, she's leaving behind one hell of a trail.