Gold for Kate O'Connor in the heptathlon at FISU World University Games
O'Connor, a master's student in communication and PR at Ulster University, was a heavy favourite going into the event and the 24-year-old lived up to that billing. Her tally obliterated her previous Irish heptathlon record of 6297 from 2021, putting her fourth in the world this year, and it left her a long way in front of silver medallist Szabina Szucs (6081) of Hungary and bronze medallist Emilia Surch of Australia (6068).
It had already been a massive year for O'Connor, who twice smashed the Irish pentathlon record indoors. She won bronze at the European Indoors in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands before winning World Indoor silver in Nanjing, China – the first ever medals Ireland had won in the multi-events at that level. She had previously won heptathlon silver at the European U-20 Championships and at the 2022 Commonwealth Games for Northern Ireland.
On Wednesday morning, she made a shaky start in the 100m hurdles, clocking 13.89, some way down on her best of 13.57. But she bounced back with a hugely impressive 1.83m in the high jump, the second highest clearance of her career, before throwing 13.76m in the shot put. She closed the day in superb fashion, smashing her 200m personal best with 24.33, leaving her well clear in the overnight standings.
She started day two in decent fashion with 6.15m in the long jump before throwing an impressive 51.87m in the javelin. That left her just needing to avoid calamity in the concluding 800m to take gold but, aware that she was on for a huge national record, O'Connor emptied the tank, hitting the line second in a lifetime best of 2:10.46. Given her sub-par performances in the hurdles and shot put, she has scope for more improvement as she looks ahead to the Tokyo World Championships in September.
She is the eighth Irish competitor to have won gold at the World University Games. On the track, Ronnie Delany won over 800m in 1961; Niall Bruton and Sonia O'Sullivan took 1500m glory in 1991; while Thomas Barr won the 400m hurdles in 2015. In swimming, Gary O'Toole won the 200m breaststroke in 1991 and Shane Ryan won the 50m backstroke in 2017, while golfer Danielle McVeigh won individual gold in 2007.
Meanwhile, Lauren Roy came home fourth in her semi-final of the women's 200m, clocking 24.07 into a stiff 2.5m/s headwind, her time not enough to advance as a non-automatic qualifier.
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