Proud father and coach Michael O'Connor hails daughter Kate's Commonwealth Games gold
Michael O’Connor was a proud coach and an even prouder father as daughter Kate won Team NI’s first gold medal of the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
It was Northern Ireland’s first athletics gold medal since Philip Beattie’s success 40 years ago, while O’Connor became the first Team NI female to top the podium since Mary Peters in Christchurch in 1974.
O’Connor romped to the Commonwealth title as she beat England’s Jade O’Dowda by just under 300 points.
“What a super couple of days, you can’t ask for much more than that,” beamed delighted father Michael.
“It’s not difficult being Kate’s coach, it is an absolute pleasure that I get the pleasure of being the parent of a star, but then to be involved in the sporting success that Kate has achieved over the last few years is an absolute privilege – we have our moments but it is a privilege.
“I think over the years we have learned to switch it off; when we get home, athletics mostly stops and then with Kate working up in Belfast it gives her a chance to be away and be on her own as well.
“Kate the person has to live and evolve as well and Kate the athlete has to as well.”
O’Connor was always into sport from an early age, her father revealed.
“She always had talent right from when she was young; she was involved in everything: a good footballer, a good basketball player, a good swimmer and things evolve, they go though their juvenile growth and then university is a settling down time, and then how you evolve into the senior ranks is a growth stage so she has always been on it,” he said.
O’Connor won a silver medal in Birmingham four years ago to claim her first major medal in a special moment for the Northern Ireland athlete.
“I was thinking about the Birmingham medal and when she won that medal, she said she put it under her pillow that night and kept wakening up to feel it to see if it was still there, and that she hadn’t been dreaming,” dad Michael added. “That was a big door opener for home and a big competition.”
He described his emotions as Kate crossed the line in the 800 metres to confirm her victory to become Commonwealth Games champion.
“I think you leave the proud coach bit behind very quickly and then you become the proud parent," he said. “It was fantastic to win a Commonwealth gold medal, for me watching that when I would have watched the likes of Daley Thompson, the Coe’s and the Ovett’s and the rest of them, it is amazing, it is unbelievable.”
Kate enjoys being coached by her father and says all the hard work is worthwhile when success comes.
“There are a lot of ups and some downs and it is nice to have somebody that is 100% in your corner,” she said. “It is moments like this that make all the hard work worth it, it means a ton to me but it means so much to him.
“He has made so many sacrifices to be my coach and to make my dreams come true so I’m so grateful for all the time he puts in to make my dreams come true. We have won so many medals over the last while it is obviously a great relationship.”