‘​I'm just trying to enjoy every moment of it’ says Olympian Kate O’Connor

​Kate and her fellow athletes were glued to the television as representatives from Team Ireland sailed through the rain down the Seine and that's when the butterflies really kicked in with the biggest competition in the 23-year-old athlete's career happening for her on August 8 and 9.

Kate kindly spoke to the Newry Reporter on Saturday from Paris and gave us a flavour of what it feels like to represent Ireland on the biggest stage and how the preparations are going.

“We're on pre-camp at the moment, just outside Paris so because we weren't able to go to the opening ceremony, we dressed up in our opening ceremony kit and watched it all together downstairs, which was a lovely way to get a bit more into the atmosphere and the feel of the Olympics,” said Kate. “It was really nice.”

Injury free

In terms of the job at hand, the important thing right now is that training is going as planned.

“It's actually nice to get away as well into a bit of warmth. All my events are going really well. I'm carrying no niggles or injuries which is nice to go into a major championship just feeling healthy. So all is good and I'm really looking forward to it.”

That's fantastic news given that a full bill of health is so difficult for a heptathlete as their body is under so much duress at full throttle at seven different disciplines: 100m hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200m sprint, long jump, javelin throw, and 800m run, using different muscle groups for each one.

Kate just missed out on the Tokyo Olympics with qualification just one event away, due to injury but she battled back to full fitness and won silver at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in 2022 with 6,233 points.

O’Connor was already an old hand by then however, having competed in the previous Commonwealth games in Australia in 2018 when she was just 17. The following year, she went to the European Under-20 Championships in Sweden and won Ireland its first major international medal in multi-events, smashing the Irish record to win silver with 6,093 points.

In January last year, O'Connor broke the Irish pentathlon record with 4,396 points and a couple of months later, she finished ninth at the European Indoors. Then she went to Budapest last August for her first senior global Championships, finishing thirteenth in the heptathlon.Injury is something that’s never far from the mind however and after Christmas Kate suffered another ankle injury setback and while it’s been a long road she bounced back and qualified in Germany in June racking up 6,244 points, which earned her a place at the Games via her world ranking, despite competing with a hamstring injury.

So, how did it feel to qualify?

“It was a very surreal thing. I feel like I was kind of fed it through in drips and drabs though.

“When I was pretty sure I would make it through the rankings, you have to wait for the official selection. So I had different waves of feelings. For a long time I felt like I was living in a bit of a bubble or a dream, but now that I'm here it's all starting to feel a little bit more real.

“When the plane landed and we were in the airport and the rings were all over the place and we were high priority going through the airport, it started to kick in that I was actually competing at the Games. But I think once we actually go into the Village it will become even more real again, so I'm really looking forward to that.”

Superstars in Olympic Village

Kate will be going into the Village on Sunday August 4. She has some experience of an Olympic Village vibe from being at the Commonwealth Games in 2018 mixing with people from all different sports but in 2022 in Birmingham following Covid it was somewhat different.

“We were all split up into three different villages, so it was almost on a smaller scale. But I think that both of those experiences will really feed well for me going into the Olympic Village.

“I'm hoping that I'm not going to be too star struck and that I'll be able to take everything in my stride. But I am looking forward to experiencing everything and seeing athletes who are at the top of their game walking past me.”

Some of those she's hoping to see are the big name tennis players like American Coco Gauff fresh from Wimbledon who Kate mentions had just landed at the Village

“I saw that on Tik Tok,” she laughs. “I suppose it's another weird thing when you have these top athletes that you have watched on TV or follow on social media and they’re staying in the exact same kind of rooms as us and eating in the exact same places. That's a bit weird to get you're head around but I'm looking forward to seeing these top athletes acting like normal people in the village.”

While she hasn't been in yet so says she can't say for sure, Kate assumes the Irish athletes will stick together as they have done in other championships she's been at .

Favourite events

When we spoke before after the 2022 Commonwealth Games Kate said her favourite discipline was high jump but as is the nature of heptathlon things can change and when asked the same question again she had a different answer

“I'm really enjoying hurdle training at the moment but competing-wise I really enjoy throwing the javelin. It's one of the more fun events for me. Those are the two I'm looking forward to most.

“I said high jump last time but things do change. For me it depends on which events are going better but ever since I hurt my ankle around Christmas time I really struggled with it to come back, trying to take off and stuff. It was a journey actually if I'm going to be honest. I'm back now into my normal rhythm but my ankle will always be strapped when I'm high jumping at the moment , so that makes it a bit different from other years - but high jump is still one of my loves.”

First Irish heptathlete

In terms of the weight of expectations as one of Ireland's representatives and the first ever heptathlete to represent her country, Kate is pragmatic.

“If I'm being honest, I'm just trying to enjoy every moment of it. I missed out so narrowly on the last Olympics in Tokyo and I worked so hard to try and get to this one so I want to enjoy every second. But of course, with every competition that I do I expect the best from myself and I want to make everyone proud. So, I have set goals. I would love to break the National Record. Breaking it at the Olympic Games would be great and I think I'm in the shape to do it.

“But I don't know if it's just that I've got a really good team around me that keep me sheltered from the pressures, but the pressure that I feel is more the pressure I put on myself. I know that everybody is really proud of me for getting here in the first place and being Ireland's first ever heptathlete. It’s such a huge honour and I just want to go out and do the country proud.”