Our daily round up of the Irish athletes in action during yesterday at the Olympic Games in Paris.

ATHLETICS

Newry native Kate O’Connor made history yesterday becoming Ireland’s first ever heptathlete to compete at an Olympic Games.

The heptathlon comprises of seven events over a gruelling two days of competition. The order of heptathlon competition is 100m hurdles, high jump, shot, 200m, long jump, javelin and 800m, contested over two days. Points are awarded in each of the events and the winner is the athlete who scores the most points.

Twenty-three-year-old O’Connor opened her campaign placing seventh in her heat of the 100m hurdles in a time of 14.02 yielding 967 points.

A short time later the athletes were out again in the High Jump with O’Connor performing really well to record a season’s best jump of 1.77m bagging 941 points.

In the Shot Put, the 23-year-old threw a best of 13.79m, down on her season’s best which is in excess of 14m. She was however particularly pleased with her 200m performance where she clocked a season’s best of 24.77, just 0.04 of a second off her personal best.

O’Connor, who is coached by her father Michael, currently sits 19th after the opening four events, but has arguably her strongest of them; javelin, to look forward to today.

Speaking afterwards O’Connor reflected on her opening day of competition:

“It started off a little bit rough. The hurdles weren’t really what I was planning on doing but I’m really proud of how I picked myself up and then do a season’s best in the high jump. My high jump has been a bit all over the place this year because of injury but I feel like I got rolling after that,” she said.

“The shot could have been a bit better but it was pretty solid, it wasn’t terrible. I don’t think I lost too much there. I’m really proud of that 200m. It was only five or six weeks ago that I tore my hamstring. To run 0.04 off my personal best from lane two, I can’t complain with that.”

O’Connor also spoke about her Olympic experience so far:

“I came here and my goal was to not have any regrets from all the events and I walked away from that hurdles and was like, damn it, I didn’t take in the crowd and stuff. But from the high jump on I made sure to enjoy the experience and just be me, just enjoy it and lap up the whole experience because it’s another four years before it’ll come around again,”she added.

GOLF

It was another unforgiving day for Stephanie Meadow and Leona Maguire at Le Golf National, as the Team Ireland pair fell further adrift of the leaders at the Women’s Individual Golf Singles.

Meadow carded a two-over-par round of 74 on Thursday to sit on eight-over-par overall, while Maguire is at 13-over-par on the leader board after a second round 79.

Meadow’s round contained four birdies – two on each nine – but six bogeys cost her, and ultimately put paid to her efforts of climbing back up the standings after a damaging 78 on Wednesday.

It was a similarly frustrating afternoon for Maguire, whose disappointing round unfortunately concluded with a quadruple bogey nine on the 18th.

Switzerland’s Morgane Metraux leads the field on eight-under-par after a round of 66 propelled her up the leader board on Thursday, with China’s Rouning Yin lying two shots back, and New Zealand’s Lydia Ko in third.

With thanks to the Team Ireland media team doing a brilliant job throughout the Games.

 

 

 

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