Kate O'Connor is firmly in the medal hunt in the heptathlon at the World Athletics Championship as Friday's four events produced three personal bests for the Irish athlete.
The 100m hurdles, high jump and 200m all produced magic moments for O'Connor, with a commendable performance in the shot put adding to an all-round brilliant day that left her in second place on 3906 points, behind runaway leader Anna Hall of the USA who sits on 4154 points.
The competition concludes on Saturday with the long jump, javelin and 800m events.
O'Connor, who has enjoyed a stellar season so far - after claiming bronze at the European Championships and silver at the World Indoors before setting a new national record to claim gold at the World University Games - posted a time of 13.44 seconds in finishing third in heat one of the hurdles and was tied fourth in the high jump, leaving her on 2113 points overall and level in third with Great Britain's reigning champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson.
O'Connor moved into outright third after finishing fifth in the shot put, with second in her 200m heat securing the silver medal position overnight.
GB's Jade O’Dowda, sister of Republic of Ireland international Callum, won O'Connor's 100m hurdles heat but O'Connor's time gave her 1059 points, meaning she sat alongside Finland's Saga Vanninen and Johnson-Thompson in eighth after the first event.
The Irish athlete's fine start then continued in the high jump discipline.
O’Connor, who set a PB of 1.84m in March this year, cleared 1.68m, 1.71m, 1.74m, 1.77m, 1.80m and 1.83m without failure - although the bar wobbled slightly on the last.
That set up a shot at a new PB as the bar was raised to 1.86m and after two failures, she cleared it on her third attempt to set that new mark.
Five athletes advanced to the 1.89m height where O'Connor, Sofie Dokter and Johnson-Thompson were eliminated with Belgium's Nafi Thiam, the current Olympic champion who has cleared 2.02m previously, and USA's Hall falling at the next height as the discipline came to a close, with Hall leading Thiam overall by 2210 to 2127 and O'Connor/Johnson-Thompson on 2113.
"That's a big, big wow!"
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) September 19, 2025
A second PB of the morning for Kate O'Connor, this time in the high jump.
💻 Watch: https://t.co/8r55LhgRBk pic.twitter.com/fRSdO6EYFG
O'Connor was clearly happy with her first throw of 14.37 metres in the shot put and it proved the best of her three efforts.
She finished fifth in that event, moving into outright third as Johnson-Thompson could only manage 13.37 in one of her weaker disciplines.
Hall threw a PB of 15.80 to stretch her overall lead to 47 points while Thiam (2978) threw a season's best 14.85 to increase the gap to O'Connor (2932).
Kate O'Connor's first throw of 14.37 metres was enough for fifth in the shot put phase of the heptathlon and the Irishwoman is now outright third after three of seven events
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) September 19, 2025
📺Watch the #WorldAthleticsChamps live on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player pic.twitter.com/SLbEgQ4F0W
Last on Day 7 was the 200m, one of O'Connor’s supposed weaker disciplines, but her wonder day continued as she clocked her third PB from four events.
Running in heat one, O’Connor finished second in 24.07 seconds, just behind Emma Oosterwegel of the Netherlands who clocked her own PB of 24.03.
Heat two was won by Spain’s Maria Vicente in 23.96 with a quick final heat won by Abigail Pawletti in 23.25.
The Irishwoman will be back in action in the long jump at 3.35am Irish time on Saturday, followed by the javelin throw (11am) and 800m finale (1.11pm).
Darragh McElhinney (above) agonisingly missed out on reaching the men's 5000m final after a 10th placed finish in heat two.
The 24-year-old kept touch with the leading pack throughout and seemed in a good position to kick for home with the top eight qualifying, but he was unable to get past enough bodies as the line approached.
On just missing out, McElhinney told RTÉ Sport's David Gillick: "I'm very disappointed to have come so close. I dreamt of coming here and making a final; I knew I would be close. It's all about going to that next level and I did manage to catch a few who are ahead of me in the rankings. I just need to pip a few more going down the home straight."
That said the Co Cork athlete did accentuate the positives, when saying: "I ran well. I'd be annoyed if I came here and just crashed out and had no authority on the race at all. I'm proud of the way I performed, proud of the way I raced. On another day I would had an extra .2 or 3 seconds going down the home straight - and that's all it was. I'm disappointed but I can walk away knowing I ran well."
Darragh McElhinney just missed out on a place in the 5,000m final after a 10th-place finish. Andrew Coscoran was 19th as reigning champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen took the last qualifying spot.
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) September 19, 2025
📺Watch the #WorldAth… live on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player pic.twitter.com/y8Tu2e10a2
Andrew Coscoran finished 19th in a heat won by Ethiopia's Biniam Mehary in a time of 13:41.52 with Norway's reigning champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen just taking the last qualification spot after his shock heat exit in the 1500m event last week.
Brian Fay finished 17th in heat one, his time of 13:31.12 well outside the qualification spots for the final.
The Dubliner took an aggressive approach and was amongst the front runners for the first half of the gruelling run, but was eventually dropped as Belgium’s Isaac Kimeli won in a time of 13:13.06.
Watch the World Athletics Championships with coverage every day this week on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player
