\n<\/p>\n
However, the Dundalk woman immediately showed she remained in the form of her life by setting a new 60m hurdles personal best of 8.30 seconds.<\/p>\n
A high jump of 1.81m – only three centimetres down on the best she set in the Netherlands – was followed by another lifetime best shot put of 14.64m, which added 10 centimetres to her previous best mark.<\/p>\n
That left O’Connor, who won Commonwealth Games heptathlon silver for Northern Ireland behind Katarina Johnson-Thompson in 2022, in second place after three events.<\/p>\n
While she slipped to third – just three points behind US athlete Taliyah Brooks – despite another long jump personal best of 6.32m, the Northern Ireland athlete finished well ahead of the American in the concluding 800m to secure the silver.<\/p>\n
“I knew that to get the silver, I had to beat the American girl, so that was just the plan. I just wanted to go out and run hard and just fight until the very end,” she added.<\/p>\n
“I wasn’t sure where she was at all but for the last 50m I was just thinking ‘how much do you want the silver?’ I’m upgrading from [bronze at the] Europeans so I’m really happy.”<\/p>\n
O’Connor also told Athletics Ireland she hopes her medals over the last fortnight will “really push multi-events forward in the country and let younger athletes see what other options are available to them in athletics”.<\/p>\n
She becomes only the seventh Irish athlete to claim an individual medal at a World Indoor Championship, following in the footsteps of Marcus O’Sullivan, Paul Donovan, Frank O’Mara, Sonia O’Sullivan, Paul McKee and O’Rourke.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n