No sporting event loves the big countdown more than the Olympics, although Kate O’Connor has other things in mind long before she starts turning any undue attention towards Los Angeles on July 14th, 2028.
“Everything we’re doing is building towards being in the best possible shape for LA and the best possible athlete I can be by then,” O’Connor says. “But you can definitely get caught up in the whole Olympic cycle, when there are so many other big championships and medals to win. But it’s not long . . . it will fly by.”
As far as O’Connor is concerned, all that matters for now are the two weeks to go before she returns to the heptathlon at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Her seven events are set for July 28th and 29th. Two weeks after that, she’ll take on another heptathlon at the European Championships in Birmingham.
O’Connor hasn’t competed anywhere since winning her fifth championship medal within 13 months, with bronze in the pentathlon at the World Indoors in March. The goal of winning two more medals within just over a fortnight is a lofty one – exactly the sort of challenge the 25-year-old from Dundalk relishes.
RM Block
“I hope I’ll be able to do it and the training is definitely pointing in that direction,” she says. “I’ve never put myself in a position where I’ve done two heptathlons so close together, but I’ve full faith I’ll be able to. And we’ve tailored the training to replicate tough days, close together.
“But it’s exciting, to try something new. Training has been going really well, but like I keep saying, it’s one thing doing it in training, it’s different trying to replicate that in competition, especially when you’re under pressure.”
O’Connor also doesn’t hesitate in saying she’s “going there to win” – in both Glasgow and Birmingham. The expectation now is that she will win a medal each time she competes, something she also embraces.
“It’s different this year. I’m going as one of the favourites to win. That’s a different pressure, but you can never walk into any championships knowing how you’re going to do. You still have to go out and perform.
“Sometimes I get extremely stressed, wondering if the body will hold together. I haven’t competed at all since indoors, which is a little nerve-racking. But I’m trying to just enjoy the ride. Year-on-year, my plan is to continually get better. All I can do is focus on myself. I’m producing better results in training. If I can score higher this year, higher next year, then score the highest so far in 2028, that’s all I can do.
“If other girls come out and beat me, then fair play to them, because they’ll have been working pretty flippin’ hard behind the scenes.”
O’Connor was 17 when she made her senior debut at the 2018 Commonwealth Games on Australia’s Gold Coast. Four years ago in Birmingham, she won heptathlon silver behind England’s Katarina Johnson-Thompson, who’s back seeking a third successive title.
She has a strong connection to the Commonwealth event too: her mother Valerie was born and raised in Portglenone, just outside Ballymena, while O’Connor was born in Newry, the nearest hospital to the family home in Dundalk.
“My mam is a northern woman through-and-through. So there’s a lot of family history there, aside from me being born just across the Border. So it’s always felt right for me to represent Northern Ireland too. My dad is from Dundalk, but I’m representing my mother’s side of the family. And I’ve trained predominantly up the North too.
“And the Commonwealth Games have always been huge for me, in my development as an athlete. It was my first senior competition and to get a feel for that village vibe – to get that experience so young has definitely stood to me.”
– Kate O’Connor was speaking as a Davy ambassador.
