Cathal Dennehy: The path to senior success does not run in a straight line
Kate O'Connor, representing Ulster University and Ireland, celebrates with her gold medal after finishing first in the women's heptathlon during day eight of the FISU World University Games 2025. Pic: Shauna Clinton/Sportsfile
The trajectory is never straight, never simple. To achieve what Kate O’Connor and Sarah Healy have this year, vast talent is a prerequisite, but there’s so much more to it.
It’s now six years since they won silver medals at European U-20 level – O’Connor in the heptathlon, Healy over 1500m.
O’Connor was elated with that result. Healy was devastated. But what they had in common was a belief that it was just the beginning. They both had the ambition, work ethic and discipline to match their outlying talent.
Seeing them now, flourishing at the age of 24, it’s easy to forget how difficult they had it along the way. Because for Healy to win gold at the European Indoors in March, and for O’Connor to bask in that same, triumphant glow at this week’s World University Games, both had to navigate a minefield of difficulty. Or, to borrow from they “crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side".
For a lucky few, that transition is relatively seamless. So it was for Rhasidat Adeleke, though this year, aged 22, she’s finding out that backwards steps are sometimes inevitable in a sport so difficult, so global.
O’Connor was just 20 when she set the Irish heptathlon record at 6297 points in 2021. A second result like that and she’d have become an Olympian in Tokyo but in her next heptathlon she suffered a stress fracture in her metatarsal, her Olympic dream deferred, but not denied.
In 2022, she won silver at the Commonwealth Games but at the Europeans in Munich that summer, she felt the same metatarsal pain and had to withdraw, saying it was “devastating”.
Healy, by and large, avoided the injury issues that often kept O’Connor’s brilliance shackled. Healy did break her foot during the 2022 European Cross Country in Italy, but her biggest battles were often psychological.
She courageously opened up about the nerves afflicting her on the big stage, having faced many dark days at major championships.
But both have worked assiduously on their weaknesses since 2019, all while strengthening their strengths. Healy’s rise was guided first by her club coach, Eoghan Marnell, who steered her with such a careful hand before handing her over to Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows in Manchester in 2023.
O’Connor also spent time in England, studying at Sheffield Hallam University and training with world-class heptathletes before bringing that knowledge back home, with her father Michael steering her team of coaches – a homemade, family-run, world-class performance circle.
For both, things have clicked in 2025. Healy set national records at 1500m and 3000m indoors before kicking to 3000m glory at the European Indoors.
She has since racked up three top-three finishes at Diamond Leagues, including a win in Rome, and became the second fastest Irishwoman ever over 1500m, clocking 3:57.15, behind only Ciara Mageean’s national record of 3:55.87.
O’Connor has accrued a full medal set from her three championships: bronze at the European Indoors, silver at World Indoors and gold at the World University Games – her heptathlon tally of 6487 now ranking her fourth in the world.
Both can look to September’s World Championships in Tokyo not just with hope, but expectation. A top-six finish looks doable for O’Connor and given the injury rate in the multi-events, and the risk of calamity, a podium finish isn’t out of the question.
Healy’s target will be to reach the 1500m final and if she does that, a finish in the middle third of that 12-woman race would be a huge, but realistic, achievement.
There was also a third Irish medallist at those European U-20s in 2019 – Darragh McElhinney, who won 5000m bronze. Like Healy and O’Connor, the Glengarriff native was a prodigious junior but he, too, has encountered the vast chasm between that and senior success.
He narrowly missed a medal at the 2023 European Indoors but has faced plenty of dark days since, watching from afar as Healy and O’Connor competed in Paris last year, knowing he could have been with them.
But in recent weeks, his undoubted ability has roared back to life, McElhinney setting a lifetime best of 13:12.17 for 5000m and running a 3:51.99 mile, proving the permanency of his class.
For many, it doesn’t go this way. Two years before McElhinney, O’Connor and Healy won European U-20 medals, Ireland had three podium finishes at the same event: Michaela Walsh taking bronze in the hammer, John Fitzsimons winning bronze over 800m and Gina Akpe-Moses taking gold in the 100m.
None have got close to medals as seniors, with Akpe-Moses’ 100m best dating back to 2019, Fitzsimons’ 800m best to 2022 and Walsh’s hammer and shot put bests set in 2017 and 2018.
In recent weeks, many more underage medals have come Ireland’s way, but those athletes should remember that the path to senior success will not run in a straight line.
As it was for Healy and O’Connor, it might take many years, lots of luck, world-class support teams and a whole heap of heartbreak before they can enjoy a golden moment on the senior stage.
