Kate O'Connor claims gold medal in women's heptathlon, Coscoran wins bronze

Kenneth Fox

Kate O'Connor has secured a gold medal in the women's heptathlon at the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham.

The 25-year-old claimed third place in the 800 metres earlier as she followed Rhasidat Adeleke and Mark English in finishing on the podium this week.

O'Connor adds the European medal to her gold in the Commonwealth Games and her silver in the World Championships in recent times.

“Crossing the line and then realising that you’re going to have the gold medal wrapped around your neck is just incredible, insane,” said O’Connor of claiming Ireland’s seventh European gold.

“It’s been a dream of mine since I was a kid, and a couple of years ago I would never have thought that I would be standing in this position, European gold medallist. It’s surreal, crazy, amazing and exciting.

“It’s been a rollercoaster the last two days. But I think sometimes competitions that are up and down like that make the medal even sweeter. Standing on the line of the 800m, I was nervous, I’m sure everybody else was nervous as well, because it’s a tough run out there.”

Her final tally of 6,751 points, surpassing her national record of 6,714 she set when winning silver at last year’s World Championships.

Elsewhere, the 10,000 metres final featured Ireland's Jack O'Leary, who finished 10th.

Andrew Coscoran brought his 1500m campaign to an end with an impressive bronze medal.

A late surge sealed a bronze medal for Coscoran as he became the fourth member of Team Ireland to win a medal.

Ireland qualified teams in both the men’s and women’s 4x100m relay finals. Bori Akinola, Sean Aigboboh, Marcus Lawler and Israel Olatunde ending up eighth in 40.26, not helped by a poor first baton exchange, while the women’s quartet of Lucy-May Sleeman, Ciara Neville, Sarah Leahy and Lauren Roy finished seventh in 44.18.