Inside Track: O’Connor again trumps her keen rival and wins World silver

They clashed in the Olympics and again in last week’s World Championships – what are the odds on Kate O’Connor and Jade O’Dowda meeting for a third time, or maybe it will be a fourth or fifth time, when the next celebration of the Games comes around in Los Angeles in 2028?

Slim, you would have to think. Both have got age on their side, and are improving all the time.

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Avoiding injury, they should again take their place in the starting-blocks alongside each other in some of the seven events that constitute the energy-sapping heptathlon, watched in countries throughout the world.

Both have a Dundalk connection. O’Connor’s is widely known. She’s lived all her life here, was educated here, linked up with the St Gerard’s club, and has her father, Michael, as her chief coach.

All that she had previously achieved on track and field was put in the shade in Tokyo last weekend. Showing the consistency and endurance needed to succeed in her event, the 24-year-old accumulated enough points over two days to win silver.

That she did herself, her family, her town and country proud is beyond question. And she did it in style, breaking her own national record in the first four events disciplines, and then earning enough points in the final three, the javelin, long jump and the 800 metres, to stay in the leader’s slipstream.

She had to run to the line, as it were. In second place going into the final discipline, the 800m, she still had a lot of work to do to make certain of finishing second to the American, Anna Hall.

This she did, going fast enough in the two-lapper to retain her position.

That doesn’t tell the whole story. In her wake, O’Connor had some of the greatest heptathletes of all time. Defending World champion, Katarina Johnson-Thompson, who finished third, and out the back, three-time Olympic gold medallist, Belgium’s Nafi Thiam.

Also in arrears was Jade O’Dowd. And here we have a girl whose link with Dundalk goes back many decades. Her grandfather was the internationally renowned tenor, Brendan O’Dowda, who, before winning fame on stage, played Gaelic football with St Bride’s, winning a Louth senior title with the Knockbridge outfit in 1943.

Jade’s brother, Callum, has played International soccer for the Republic of Ireland, and is presently on the Ferencváros books in Hungary, having previously played with Oxford and Cardiff City.

There’s a strong bond as well as rivalry between Kate O’Connor and Jade O’Dowd, and you can be sure the Great Britain athlete was one of the first to congratulate the silver medal-winner.

The World Championships were held for the first time in Helsinki in 1983. They are remembered in this country for Éamonn Coghlan’s win in the 5,000m. Up until this year’s renewal, Ireland had only five medal-winners.

Coghlan, Sonia O’Sullivan, won silver in the 1,500m, and then gold in the 5,000m, and Gillian O’Sullivan, Olive Loughnane and Rob Heffernan, all three collecting in walking events, Heffernan’s win the most recent, in 2013.

All of this puts Kate O’Connor’s achievement in perspective. Her event is fiercely contested, as evidenced by the line-up in Tokyo, and requires fitness levels that can only be imagined. Her build-up to Los Angeles is ongoing, with her performance last weekend a clear indication that all is on track.