Kate O'Connor wins silver at World Indoor championships

Michael Bolton

Kate O’Connor has won silver in the pentathlon at the World Indoor Championships in Nanging, China on Friday.

O'Connor started with a personal best of 8.30 seconds in the 60m hurdles, before clearing 1.81m in the high jump, the best in that event outright, with another personal best of 14.64 in the shot put.

She followed that with two personal bests in the long jump, leaping to 6.27m with her first attempt, then improving to 6.30m with her second.

O’Connor was in third place before the 800m, the event she won outright in Apeldoorn, though well within sight of Taliyah Brooks from the United States, then just three points ahead of her.

In the end she finished well clear of Brooks, who had to settle for bronze, O’Connor’s time being 2:14.19.

O’Connor points tally was 4,742, just off her European Indoor tally and Irish record of 4,781, with European Indoor champion Saga Vanninen of Finland winning with 4821. Brooks was third on 4,669.

It comes just 12 days after O'Connor won bronze at the European Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn. She won the first Irish senior medal winner in a multi-event.

Derval O’Rourke last won a medal for Ireland at the World Indoor Championships, with her gold in the 60m hurdles in Moscow in March 2006.

Sophie O'Sullivan ran a lifetime best but didn't advance from her heat in the women's 1500 metres while a third place finish in his heat wasn't enough to see Andrew Coscoran advance in the men's 1500 either.

That heat won by Jakob Ingebrigtsen in 3:39.80.

Coscoran will also run the 3,000m, that a straight final on Saturday, which will also feature Ingebrigtsen