There’s a corner of the Alexander Stadium in Birmingham that is seemingly forever Ireland.
At the top bend of the back straight, they arrived in their numbers, a sea of green creating a wall of noise as Kate O’Connor took European Athletics Championship heptathlon gold, just a few days after Mark English won the 1500m.
You can’t be a Northern Irish athlete without comparisons to Dame Mary Peters. At the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, O’Connor became the first to top a track and field podium in 40 years and the first woman to do so since Peters in 1974.
But the athletics icon never won this title, which really only leaves one thing for the world silver medallist: matching her Olympic success from 54 years ago in Munich, with Los Angeles now just under two years away and counting.
Her points tally of 6,751 is a new national record and ranks her second in the world this year, with Switzerland’s Annik Kalin, who arrived here ranked number one, finishing just outside the medals.
Winning is a habit and no wonder O’Connor, who is coached by her father Michael, is starting to think even bigger.
“I’ve got a nice taste for gold medals now but I know the pressure and expectation increases with every competition, I’ll embrace that,” she said.
“That [the 800m finale] was the most nerve-racking two minutes of my life but when I heard cheers like that for me going around those two laps, there was no way I was going to let that gold medal slip through my fingers.
“I just wanted to cruise home and make sure I leave here injury-free and with a gold medal around my neck. I’ve dreamt of this moment since I started in this sport and it wasn’t long ago that it didn’t seem very likely.
“This year has been really tough for me personally. My Granny died during the year and I don’t think I give my Dad enough credit for how hard it hit him. But he still turned up to training day in, day out because this is my dream, but it’s his dream too.
“I have to dedicate this medal to her because she was our biggest fan. She would have been jumping for joy if she was here to see this.”
O’Connor, at 25, is at the peak of her powers and, in fact, a year younger than Katarina Johnson-Thompson was when she won the first of her two world titles in Doha back in 2019.
Johnson-Thompson’s status as one of Britain’s great multi-eventers is secure but her future appears far from certain after she finished 21st, last of those who completed all seven events.
She always knew competing here was a stretch – let alone finding herself back on the podium.
The 33-year-old has been elusive this season, with just one fleeting appearance in the shot in Loughborough three months ago after struggling with a calf injury.
She swerved the Commonwealth Games to focus on Birmingham but her hopes of upgrading her 2018 European silver were never realistic.
“I’m thinking of the future. I’ve always said that when I’m not competitive then I will start to ask questions,” she said. “Right now, I want to be in the moment, the hunger is still here. I can’t just want to be part of something, I want to compete.
“It’s far from my best and not the competition I wanted but it is what it is and I finished it.
“It’s not easy to come into a heptathlon out of shape. It’s not like other events when you can get knocked out in the heats and go home. You are out here with everyone watching for two whole days.
“It was important that I just finished because I fought so hard to be here. I’ve been coming to this stadium since English Schools, it’s a really important place for me.”
For Johnson-Thompson, the questions are now about how long; for O’Connor, they’re increasingly about how far.
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