Kate O’Connor seals gold for Northern Ireland at the Commonwealth Games
Newry-born heptathlete Kate O’Connor has made history tonight, winning Northern Ireland’s first Commonwealth Games gold medal in athletics since 1986.
O'Connor, who trains out of Dundalk club St Gerard’s, has bettered her exceptional performance at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, where she brought home a silver medal, and takes her tally to a staggering six Championship medals in the last 17 months.
The 25-year-old was dominant throughout this year’s games, winning five of the seven Heptathlon events en route to her gold medal. She capped off a superb showing by winning the 800m – the final event – in a time of 2:10.45. Overall, she claimed 6,569 points, finishing comfortably ahead of silver medallist Jane O’Dowda’s 6,278.
She ran the 100m hurdles in 13.54 seconds, before scoring 1.82m in the high jump. After a disappointing shot put in wet conditions, where she threw just 12.85, she bounced back to run the 200m in a ime of 24.14, to top the standings heading into Wednesday's second day of the competition.
Today, she recorded a leap of 1.82m in the long jump and a 52.85m in the javelin to move 258 points ahead going into the final, event where she put the icing on the cake.
O’Connor becomes just the third woman to win athletics gold for Northern Ireland at the Commonwealth Games, following Mary Peters in the pentathlon (1970 and 1974) and Thelma Hopkins in the high jump (1954).
On a personal level, she has added to her ever-growing list of achievements, which includes silver medals at the World Championships and World Indoor Championships representing Ireland, a gold medal at the Summer World University Games, and participation at the 2024 Summer Olympics.