Kate O’connor received a heroine’s welcome at Dublin Airport as she landed home from her World Indoor Athletics heroics for Team Ireland.
O’Connor claimed silver medal success in the pentathlon at last weekend’s World Indoor Championships in China.
In doing so, the 24-year-old clinched Ireland’s first world indoor podium in 19 years.
The success marked the end of a productive fortnight for the Louth native after she won European indoor bronze just two weekends prior in Apeldoorn in the Netherlands.
Arriving back to Dublin Airport, O’Connor shared her emotions and reflected on the magnitude of the achievement.
She told RTÉ: ‘It’ll probably take me a couple of weeks just to actually understand what I’ve just done.
‘At the moment I’m just trying to go with the flow and take it in as much as I can but I think it’ll take a bit of time to be like, ‘wow, I’ve done that’.
Ireland’s World Indoor pentathlon silver medallist Kate O’Connor said it would “probably take me a couple of weeks to understand what I’ve just done” as she arrived back in Dublin today. pic.twitter.com/PYntihphet
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) March 25, 2025
‘Having a Worlds medal is insane. Not many people have done it.
‘There was a photo posted online of me alongside Sonia O’Sullivan and Derval O’Rourke and that is so surreal to me, that I’m kind of being compared to those two women
‘It’s great and I’m enjoying it. I’m injury free and I hope to keep training hard and win medals for Ireland.’
