'Madness': Kate O'Connor describes silver medal win at World Indoor Championships
Michael Bolton
Kate O’Connor has described her silver medal win in the pentathlon at the World Indoor Championships in Nanjing, China on Friday as "madness".
Speaking to Virgin Media News, the Dundalk woman said "that's just the word I've been using over and over again".
"It’ll probably take a couple of hours maybe a couple of days to fully sink in but yeah I’m delighted".
"I always really try to keep my cool and like not really look into everything too much, I was a little bit disappointed coming off the high jump... but I think that’s what kind of pushed me on to get a shot PB [personal best], it was the one PB that I didn’t get at Europeans," O'Connor said.
"I knew there was a PB there and that high jump really pushed me on to kind of go out there and get something that I didn’t have the last time and the long jump, oh my gosh like the long jump is one that I think for a while will just continue to shock me, I think there’s just so much there".
"It was just nice to go out and just back up what I did a couple of weeks prior," she said, referring to her bronze medal win at the European Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn just 12 days ago, making her the first Irish senior medal winner in a multi-event.
O'Connor started with a personal best of 8.30 seconds in the 60m hurdles, before clearing 1.81m in the high jump, the best in that event outright, with another personal best of 14.64 in the shot put.
She followed that with two personal bests in the long jump, leaping to 6.27m with her first attempt, then improving to 6.30m with her second.
O’Connor was in third place before the 800m, the event she won outright in Apeldoorn, though well within sight of Taliyah Brooks from the United States, then just three points ahead of her.
In the end she finished well clear of Brooks, who had to settle for bronze, O’Connor’s time being 2:14.19.
O’Connor points tally was 4,742, just off her European Indoor tally and Irish record of 4,781, with European Indoor champion Saga Vanninen of Finland winning with 4821. Brooks was third on 4,669.
Derval O’Rourke last won a medal for Ireland at the World Indoor Championships, with her gold in the 60m hurdles in Moscow in March 2006.
Sophie O'Sullivan ran a lifetime best but didn't advance from her heat in the women's 1500 metres while a third place finish in his heat wasn't enough to see Andrew Coscoran advance in the men's 1500 either.
That heat won by Jakob Ingebrigtsen in 3:39.80.
Coscoran will also run the 3,000m, that a straight final on Saturday, which will also feature Ingebrigtsen.