'Why not tell people what you're aiming for?': Kate O'Connor targets world and Olympic titles after golden summer
Despite two women’s heptathlon gold medals in as many weeks Kate O’Connor has already set her sights on landing more special career triumphs.
The Newry-born athlete secured gold at the Commonwealth Games for Northern Ireland last month across the Glasgow tournament before topping the podium yet again at the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham on Saturday.
Whilst telling BBC Sport NI that she christened her latest success in the English city with “a double burger”, she is already looking to the months and years ahead as she looks to add more gold to her already-growing CV.
O’Connor won silver at the World Championships last year but will aim to go one better in 2027 when the event is held in Beijing. Then full focus will turn to the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
"I've got two titles to my name now, and the next goal is to get a world title and then an Olympic title,” she told BBC Sport NI. “That is ultimately the aim. When you put in so much work in behind the scenes, why not tell people what you're aiming for and make everybody else excited?
"When you know you're capable, I think that there's no harm in saying what you're aiming for. But it's going to take those points here and there and everywhere. Those centimetres across all the events."
Whilst O’Connor’s rise to the upper echelons of the sport has been quick in the last couple of years, she conceded that America’s Anna Hall is still the woman to beat.
She added: "People are going to be nipping at my toes and I think that Anna is probably still the person that is just sitting out there a little bit in front," she said. "It's how can I get closer to her to be putting her under pressure? It would be class if we were all standing on the line of the hurdles at the Olympics and nobody knew what was going to happen and it was a fight from start to finish.”
O’Connor’s medal ceremony was due to take place on Saturday but postponed.
A West Midlands Police spokesperson confirmed that a man in his 30s had been “arrested on suspicion of fraud” and in a statement on Sunday afternoon, the force revealed that “concerns were raised after a man was found in an area of Alexander Stadium with the wrong accreditation”.