O'Connor claims World Indoor bronze in new Irish record

Kate O'Connor won bronze in the women's pentathlon at the World Indoor Athletics Championships in Torun, Poland on Sunday evening in a new Irish record score of 4839 points.

In the final event of the competition, the 800m, O'Connor ran an indoor personal best of 2:10.26, crossing the line in second place.

After a nervy wait at the finish line, Sofie Dokter of the Netherlands was announced the winner in a new world leading score of 4888 points.

Anna Hall claimed silver, overtaking O'Connor in the standings after a gallant front run in the 800m, scoring 4860 points overall.

In the last 366 days O'Connor has won four major medals and World Student Games gold, and now only Sonia O'Sullivan and Catherina McKiernan have won more individual global medals for Ireland.

She is also the first Irishwoman to win two World Indoor medals and added 68 points to the score that won her silver in last year's championship.

O'Connor began her bid for another podium finish with a 7.23 clocking in the 60m hurdles, just two hundredths of a second off the personal best she set in the national championships at the start of the month.

Vitally in the high jump, O'Connor cleared 1.81m on the third attempt, before failing to get over 1.84m.

Hall and Dokter both cleared that height.

Hall then bowed out at 1.87m.

Dokter exited the competition at the next height but in the lead after two events.

In the final event of the morning session, O'Connor produced two personal bests.

She added one centimetre to her previous shot put best in round two, before adding an additional five centimetres, throwing 14.70m in the final round to secure the bronze medal position with two events remaining.

With a few hours to recover, the multi-eventers were back on track for the long jump.

O'Connor fouled the first round, before jumping a best of 6.38m in the third and final round, moving up to second on the overall standings going into the final event.

Earlier, Sarah Lavin didn't progress to the semi-final stage of the women's 60m hurdles, clocking 8.08 to finish fifth in heat one.

With only the top three to qualify automatically and the next six fastest advancing on time, Lavin was pushed out of the non-automatic slots by the third heat.

The last time Lavin failed to qualify out of her heat in an international championships was 12 years ago at the European Championships in 2014, where she finished eighth in her heat and the Limerick native was understandably disappointed with her run.

"Honestly I'm lost for words and I wish I could tell you exactly.

I know it was sloppy, I know I didn't run fast enough...

I had a very good warm-up.

There's nothing that signalled I might give out a performance like that," Lavin told RTÉ Sport.

The 31-year-old detailed that she would need to watch back footage before knowing where she went wrong but felt her lane eight draw was not a factor.

"I wouldn't have come here unless I thought I could push for a final.

That's where I've been and that's where I belong.

I think Noelle (Morrissey) and I have a lot to reflect on and improve and try to understand why I opened with a 7.98 and why we didn't push on from there.

"I don't know right now, five minutes after coming off the track, what I did or what I didn't do.

Obviously, I'll take full ownership for it.

It was a bad run and I'm not here for that."
Listen to live updates from the World Athletics Championships on Saturday and Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1.