Kate O’Connor continued her rapid ascent through the combined events ranks by winning the heptathlon title at the World University Games in Bochum with an Irish record of 6487 points.
O’Connor won by over 400 points from Hungary’s Szabina Szucs who also set a lifetime best of 6081 points and the Irishwoman goes to fourth on the 2025 world list with the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo less than two months away.
This was O’Connor’s third major medal of the year having come away with bronze and silver medals respectively at the European Athletics Indoor Championships and World Athletics Indoor Championships.
O’Connor added more than 200 points to her previous lifetime best of 6244 points which was also set on German soil in Ratingen last year. Individually, O’Connor set lifetime bests in the 200m (24.33) and 800m (2:10.46).
Victories for recent major European medal winners
One week after winning the European U23 3000m steeplechase title, Finland’s Ilona Mononen added the World University Games title to his list of accolades, sprinting to victory in 9:31.86.
Slovenia’s Klara Lukan, who won 10km bronze at the European Running Championships in Brussels-Leuven, won gold over the same distance albeit on the track in a World University Games record of 31:25.84.
In a near-repeat of the discus final at the European Athletics U23 Championships, silver medallist Mika Sosna turned the tables on his German teammate and European U23 champion Steven Richter - 64.26m to 61.77m.
After just missing out on a medal at the European Athletics U23 Championships, Ukraine’s Mykhailo Brudin made it an all-European podium in the discus with bronze with 60.71m.
His compatriot and namesake Mykhailo Kokhan, the Olympic and European bronze medallist, won the hammer title as expected but only by seven centimetres from Germany’s Merlin Hummel - 77.10m to 77.03m.
European outdoor bronze medallist Agate de Sousa from Portugal won the long jump title with 6.70m by a narrow margin from China’s Shiqi Xiong (6.68m) and Colombia’s Natalia Linares (6.67m).
Four gold medals for Italy
With four gold medals and nine in total, Italy were the highest-ranked European nation on the medal table which was topped by Japan with five gold medals and 11 in total.
Three of Italy’s gold medals came in the same session on Thursday evening. Alice Muraro won the 400m hurdles title in a big lifetime best of 54.60 before Eloisa Coiro and Vittoria Fontana added to Italy’s title haul.
Coiro won the 800m in 1:59.84 ahead of Switzerland’s Veronica Vancardo (2:00.08) and Spain’s Daniela Garcia (2:00.12) while Fontana edged out her Swiss rival Leonie Pointet in the 200m, 22.79 to 22.81.
Italy’s fourth gold medal came on the last day of the championships with two-time European U23 medallist Andrea Cosi winning the 20km race walk in a championship record of 1:19:48.