Kate O'Connor enjoying staying busy after breakthrough 2025

Michael Bolton

Over the last 14 months, Kate O'Connor has been the star of Irish athletics.

The multi-event athlete has won five championship medals, including medals at the World and European Indoor championships, and the World Championships in Tokyo last September.

Right now, the focus is on camp in Portugal, where she is recovering after winning bronze in March in the pentathlon.

"We're over there to do a nice hard, hard block of training and get some good technical work in... Last block was more of a get-fit kind of block. So this block is more introducing all the events again", O'Connor told BreakingNews.ie.

"We actually have a bit of a rota. It's a bit of a competition at the moment on who can cook the best dinner. So, no, it's been good craic. It's nice to just fully put all your focus into training and recovery."

After finishing 14th at the Paris Olympic Games, O'Connor's improvements have been there for all to see.

The improvements, both physical and mental, have made her a must-watch athlete always in contention for medals.

The changes did not happen overnight, but were crucial to her progress.

"I just probably never fully committed enough up until 2025 to make that happen... I probably blamed the coaching around me more so. I was like, 'I do everything that you ask', which I did do.

"I probably wasn't looking after my nutrition and recovery side enough. I cleaned that up for the whole of winter season and I started in January 2025 in really good shape.

"I started winning medals at major championships, and continued doing what I was doing

"I don't know if it is a heptathlete thing, but I am genuinely very in tune with my body. I know what it needs, what it wants, whether that comes to food, recovery, rest, whether if someone should speak to me or not.

"My team are really trusting with that too. I try to communicate to be feeling as well as I can."

Crucial to O'Connor's success is her coach and father, Michael.

As brands and companies are queuing up to be associated with O'Connor as her popularity continues to grow, she could not have a better person by her side.

Having seen every step of her journey from childhood, they are now enjoying success on the biggest stage together.

"My parents threw me into every single sport possible whenever I was younger. In athletics, he brought me to my local club and very quickly was my chauffeur to different tracks.

"We turned up an hour before 800m training, and I would do long jump training. We would stay for an hour after 800m training so that I could throw the javelin.

"Parents being supportive is huge. Having him there by my side, he is the one who introduced multi-events to me. I probably wouldn't be sitting here if he didn't do that.

"It's class that we get to work so closely together. He's also a coach, but he's also a business partner as of right now, which is class. We get to come out here together during training camps, travel the world together, and we have a really special, close relationship."

The next focus for the Dundalk woman is the Commonwealth games, followed by the European championships.

An athlete with several areas to focus on, the 7,000 points mark is a target within O'Connor's reach.

Rival Anna Hall shared some words that resonated with O'Connor: "You can't really have an event that's a weak point.

"Everything needs to be great, and you need to continually be pushing everything on. Because there's no wriggle room."

"We definitely put an emphasis on speed, because I think that across all seven events, it really plays a huge part in them all. I think last year, that was a huge part of my success was that I got faster, and it fed really well into everything.

"So we're still continually working on that, as well as kind of getting more springy."