Ireland’s Kate O’Connor has just exploded into pole position for heptathlon gold at the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham, throwing a massive 50.16m in the javelin to seize the lead with only one event left. This is absolutely wild, especially after she started Saturday morning in third place, trailing overnight leader Adrianna Sulek-Schubert by 42 points. Talk about making a move!
Heptathlon Gold is On The Line
O’Connor, a 25-year-old Commonwealth Games gold medallist, has been on fire. Her personal best form continued in the long jump with an incredible leap of 6.55m, setting the stage for that monstrous javelin throw. Now, she’s sitting pretty with an overall total of 5,812 points. That puts her a solid 51 points clear of Netherlands’ Emma Oosterwegel, who holds 5,761 points, with another Dutch athlete, Sofie Dokter, in third at 5,741. Seriously, this thing is coming down to the wire! Meanwhile, Poland’s Sulek-Schubert had a rough start to Saturday and dropped down to seventh.
On the other side of the track, Great Britain’s Katarina Johnson-Thompson is completely out of the medal hunt, sitting in 19th place. She came into Saturday way off the pace in 16th after an injury-plagued run-up to the championships. Her long jump was only 5.77m, and her javelin throw hit 36.92m, pushing her 780 points behind O’Connor. Her GB teammate, Jade O’Dowda, is in 13th, 491 points back. This heptathlon is going to be electric when it concludes Saturday evening with the 800m at 19:45 BST. You just know O’Connor is ready to finish strong.
Sprint Showdowns and Record Breakers
The track action isn’t stopping there. Great Britain’s Georgia Hunter Bell is through to Sunday’s 1500m final after finishing first in heat two with a time of 4:08.97. Poland’s Klaudia Kazimierska and Portugal’s Salome Afonso also ran well in that heat. While Ireland’s Jodie McCann missed out, her teammates Sarah Healy and Sophie O’Sullivan both qualified from heat one, finishing second and fifth respectively, so Ireland will definitely be represented.
But wait, there’s more! Both Great Britain and Ireland are locked in for Saturday’s 4x100m men’s and women’s finals. In the women’s final, keep your eyes glued to Britain’s Amy Hunt and Dina Asher-Smith. Hunt is chasing her *third* gold medal in Birmingham after crushing the 100m and 200m, and Asher-Smith is gunning for her seventh European gold overall. That’s some serious hardware on the line tonight at 21:33 BST! And if that wasn’t enough, we saw world records shattered in race walking, with Italy’s Sofia Fiorini finishing the marathon in 3:15:11 and Spain’s Maria Perez Garcia setting a new mark in the half-marathon with 1:30:06.
It’s going to be a wild Saturday evening on the track. Will O’Connor hold on for gold in the 800m? Can Hunt and Asher-Smith make history in the relays? You don’t want to miss a second of this!
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by BBC Sport.
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