Kate O’Connor: ‘I’ve worked really hard, and I’m achieving the dream. So believe, achieve, work hard’

One of these days, Kate O’Connor might surprise us all with a show of absolute contentment. There is no such thing as perfection in any athletics event, least of all the heptathlon, yet such are O’Connor’s rising standards and medal aspirations that she’ll always be striving for it.It’s also why, after all the beaming smiles and roars of delight which punctuated her winning of European gold – and a phenomenal seventh successive championship medal – O’Connor is already thinking about being better again. Faster, higher, stronger. At 25, she’s still only entering her athletic prime. Just 17 days after adding a Commonwealth Games gold medal to her collection, the Dundalk star delivered another masterful display of running, jumping and throwing to ensure she’d virtually wrapped up the European title before the final event. Still, there’s not a second when O’Connor doesn’t appreciate the magnitude of her achievements. Such was the large Irish presence in the Alexander Stadium on Saturday night; this also felt as good as a home victory, and anything less than gold might has been a disappointment. READ MORE“It can be tough sometimes when people maybe expect that I’m going to just stand on the podium,” she said. “Because it takes a lot of hard work, takes a lot of nerve, and it takes a lot of excellent execution to do that.[ In pictures: Kate O’Connor wins European gold in BirminghamOpens in new window ]“And slowly, I’m appreciating more and more the medals that I’ve won, because I’m realising how difficult they’re going to be to continue to win. I don’t want to take it for granted, and I hope that nobody else takes it for granted either, because these medals are extremely hard to win.”She’d started the 800m knowing that as long as she finished within three-and-a-half seconds of Emma Oosterwegel from the Netherlands, the gold would be hers. She finished in third, less than a second off the Dutch woman.Kate O’Connor celebrates her gold medal win in the Women’s Heptathlon. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho “It’s been absolutely incredible. I’m so proud of myself. I’m so proud of all the support that was out there. I’ve never experienced anything like that before, and I think that it’s probably the closest that we’ll ever get to a home game. And yeah, it’s a championships that I’ll obviously never forget for winning gold, but also never forget the roars, the cheers, the support.“And seeing so many kids as well out there, screaming for autographs and photos, it kind of makes you realise that the effect you have on the country – just running, jumping, and doing all those events as well as you can. “When I was a kid, I had a dream. I’ve worked really hard, and I’m achieving the dream. So believe, achieve, work hard.”Her tally of 6,751 points has seen her set a new national record, surpassing the 6,714 she racked up when winning the silver medal at last year’s World Championship. Initially, there was speculation that the competition wouldn’t count for record purposes due to the high wind readings in the sprints and jumps, but word filtered down that because the average wind was less than +4, the records would stand.Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho [ Man arrested in Birmingham after police incident delays Kate O’Connor medal ceremonyOpens in new window ]So, within the last 18 months, O’Connor has European Indoor bronze and World Indoor silver in the pentathlon, World University Games gold and World Championships silver in the heptathlon, another World Indoor bronze in the pentathlon, and now Commonwealth Games and European Championships gold in the heptathlon. It also means that between her last seven pentathlons and heptathlons, indoors and outdoors, she’s completed 43 events in all without any big mishap – being well aware that anything can, and often will, go wrong.“It’s obviously difficult to execute a perfect heptathlon in a championship. I don’t know if I ever will, but I think that it’s great that I’m standing here saying that I want to be better, I know that I can be better, and I will be better.“I just want to keep chipping away. Hopefully, at the Olympics, I’ll have a perfect heptathlon. That would be an ideal time, wouldn’t it?” Kate O’Connor throws the javelin in the women's heptathlon at the 2026 European Athletics Championships. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho Back for her medal presentation on Sunday evening, O’Connor couldn’t hold back the tears.“I think that whenever the crowd just started singing ‘Ole, Ole’, I realised the magnitude of people that were out there. It was a little bit overwhelming, but at the same time, absolutely incredible. I enjoyed every single second.“I did kind of get emotional, because whenever you’re in a stadium, you can understand that there’s loads of people there watching, but whenever you’re standing on a podium and there’s only three people, you fully realise that people actually want to see me stand on top of the podium ... I don’t know, it just made something in me just feel really proud. It was an unforgettable experience.”