Kate O'Connor said her precocious grandma "would person been jumping for joy" arsenic the Ireland jock won golden successful the heptathlon astatine the European Championships successful Birmingham.
The Newry-born 25-year-old entered the last event, the 800m, with a 51-point pb connected nearest challenger Emma Oosterwegel of the Netherlands.
O'Connor needed to decorativeness wrong 3.4 seconds of Oosterwegel to seal wide triumph and did conscionable that, with the Dutchwoman winning the contention successful 2:10.87 arsenic O'Connor - successful 3rd down Sveva Gerevini of Italy - clocked 2:11.74.
It meant that O'Connor came apical with 6,751 points - a nationalist grounds - with Oosterwegel taking metallic connected 6,713 and Netherlands' Sofie Dokter claiming bronze connected 6,664.
This occurrence builds connected the golden O'Connor won astatine the Commonwealth Games for Northern Ireland successful July and metallic astatine past year's World Championships.
"A mates of years ago, I astir apt wouldn't person thought this would hap to me," O'Connor told RTE Sport.
"It's been a agelong 2 years. I cognize there's been medals [won], but determination is an summation successful unit with each competition, truthful each has been antithetic to effort and navigate that and this contention has been nary different. It's been hard from commencement to decorativeness and I didn't person it casual for a second.
"This twelvemonth has been truly pugnacious from extracurricular - my granny dies earlier this twelvemonth and I don't deliberation I springiness my dada capable credit, but it deed location for him and the mode helium turned up to grooming day-in and day-out...
"This is my dream, but it's his imagination excessively and I person to dedicate this medal to my granny due to the fact that she was some of our biggest fans and would person been jumping for joyousness if she was here."
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