23/12/2025
Dundalk's Kate O'Connor, is the Sportswoman of the Year 2025 - 4 medals in 4 championships - "It's just been an insane year"
Kate O’Connor, who crowned an unbelievable breakthrough year by winning silver in the heptathlon at the World Championships in Tokyo in September, is The Irish Times Sport Ireland Sportswoman of the Year 2025.
The award caps an amazing 12 months for the 25-year-old Dundalk-based track and field star who medalled in all four of the championships she entered and announced herself on the world stage as one of the best all-round women athletes in the world. In a year of outstanding achievements her silver at the World Championships in Tokyo was the crowning glory. As well as scoring five personal bests in the seven events, she attained a tally of 6,714 points, smashing her own Irish record set in July.
She told reporters afterwards she never imagined herself winning the overall award. “To be honest I’m speechless that I’ve won this award. I was here last in 2019 after I’d won the U20 silver medal and not for one second did I ever imagine myself winning the overall award, so it truly is an honour. And when I look at the names on the list of previous winners, I genuinely can’t believe that I’m toing to be amongst all these women.”
And she described the year as hectic but brilliant. “It’s just been such an insane year,” she said. During indoors I just got on a roll and just started to pick up medals, I enjoyed that feeling and I didn’t want to stop. And hopefully it doesn’t stop for the next few years.”
“It’s been very busy, and I suppose nothing prepares you for the storm that comes after a year like I’ve had. I kind of thought that I would take a couple of weeks off, I would do all the media stuff, and then that would be it over. And it certainly was not like that at all. But I’ve just tried to enjoy it all as much as I can. The year has been incredible, and I know this is just part and parcel of it. And it’s lovely to see how much people care about what I did this year. It was just lovely to see the buzz it brought everybody at home, because we worked so hard for it at times. And I think that’s the beauty of the heptathlon, everyone can buy into the story at times.”
Although it was only her second appearance on the outdoor World Championships stage – she placed 13th two years ago - O’Connor arrived in Tokyo in the form of her life.
In March she won bronze in the pentathlon in the European Indoor Championships at Apeldoorn in the Netherlands, setting a new Irish record and becoming the first Irish athlete to medal in a senior multi-event. That earned her a share of the Sportswoman of the Month Award for March with Sarah Healy, who claimed gold in the 3,000 metres at the same championships.
Less than a fortnight later O’Connor upgraded that bronze to silver at the World Indoor Championships at Nanjing in China, becoming just the third Irishwoman after Sonia O’Sullivan in 1997 and Derval O’Rourke in 2006 to make a World Indoor podium. In July another groundbreaking display at the World University Games in Bochum saw O’Connor switch seamlessly from the pentathlon – five events spread across one day – to the heptathlon – seven events outdoors spread across two days.
On this occasion, O’Connor - who was representing the University of Ulster - smashed her old Irish heptathlon record on her way to claiming the gold medal. Off the back of those successes, O’Connor, who is a member of the St Gerard’s Athletics Club in Dundalk, arrived in Tokyo in confident mood.
Everything on day one went according to plan, with PBs in the 100m hurdles, the 200m and the high jump moving her into second place.
However, a knee injury in the long jump on the morning of day two caused her a good deal of pain and anxiety and for a short period she slipped to fourth place. Despite the injury O’Connor battled bravely to record a PB in the javelin before another PB in the 800m secured her a stunning silver medal.
Afterwards an emotional O’Connor said, “Words can’t describe how I feel, words can’t describe the year that I’ve had…. I’ve never really come to a championship before and had as much pressure on my shoulders, not even from just people outside, but from myself. I expected big things and always knew I was in with a shot of getting a medal. It’s one thing knowing that you’re capable of it, it’s another thing going and doing it.”
With that silver medal-winning performance, O’Connor, who has been trained by her father Michael since she was 10-years-old, becomes only the sixth Irish athlete to win a medal at the World Championships and the first Irish athlete to win an outdoor multi-event medal. But her success has not just been confined to her athletic pursuits. Earlier this month (Dec), as well as celebrating her 25th birthday, she also graduated with a Master’s degree in PR and Communications from Ulster University.
But for the medium term, it’s clear her focus will be very much on her sporting career.
She told journalists at the Awards ceremony at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin that the fact she had to battle so hard for those medals gave her great confidence for the future. "I think what's even more special about winning those medals is, they weren't easy medals. Every single competition was really, really tough and (it wasn't just me) scoring national records, so were the women around me.”
"It's really positive... nothing that I won this year was just handed to me. It makes me really excited for the future and obviously working towards LA in 2028 - I'm very hopeful that I could do something special there. We obviously took a couple of weeks off but then we started planning for the future and we want to progress and we want to be on the podium at the Olympics, preferably in the top spot. That's what we're going to work really hard towards for the next three years. We've made some changes and we'll continue to do so and hopefully continue to see that progression. It probably won't be as much progression as we had this year but we just keep chipping away. I won't be too far away from it."
In a truly incredible year for the O’Connor family, Kate wasn’t the only one to pick up awards. In November, her father and coach Michael received the 2025 Coaching Achievement Award from World Athletics for his crucial role in his daughter's victories.
