Olympics debutante Kate O'Connor ready for heptathlon bid at Stade de France
Northern Ireland’s Kate O’Connor is preparing for her Olympics debut on Thursday at the Stade de France.
The 23-year-old from Newry is the last Team Ireland athlete to take part in the Games as she competes in the heptathlon, when she will make history as Ireland’s first ever Olympic heptathlete.
Thursday’s schedule sees O’Connor start with the 100m hurdles, before she takes on the high jump.
She ran her hurdles PB of 13:57 last year, and high jump is one of her better events, with a PB of 1.81m from 2019.
In the evening session O’Connor (Dundalk St. Gerald’s AC) will first head to the shot put circle before concluding day one of her competition with the 200m.
Her best shot put to date is 14.54m from 2021, and her best ever time over 200m is 24:73 seconds.
Last year, O’Connor finished 13th in the event at the World Athletics Championships and will be hoping to build on that performance in Paris.
She was a silver medallist behind two-time world champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson at the Commonwealth Games in 2022.
The heptathlon comprises of seven events over a gruelling two days of competition with today’s 100m hurdles, high jump, shot put, and 200m followed by the long jump, javelin and 800m events on Friday.