BY HER OWN admission, 2025 was “the perfect year” for Kate O’Connor.
The Irish multi-event athlete won silver medals at the World Championships — both outdoor and indoor — gold at the World University Games, and bronze at European Indoors.
She’s smashed records, broken barriers, and has been widely honoured throughout awards season.
O’Connor is “unquestionably the better half” of a sporting power couple, as her boyfriend Georgie Kelly often points out.
Kelly is a footballer with Carlisle United in England’s National Football League, having previously played for O’Connor’s local club Dundalk, among others.
In the build-up to Christmas, O’Connor and Kelly took time out of their busy schedules to join The 42 for a Zoom call.
Kelly and O'Connor joined The 42 for a Zoom call in the run-up to Christmas.
Emma Duffy (ED): 2025 has been phenomenal for you, Kate. Do you have a little bit of time to reflect on it now? I know you’re busy training again but do you have some time and space around now to take stock?
Kate O’Connor (KOC): I suppose I’ve reflected on it during my off season and that was kind of the moment where I was like, ‘Wow, you’ve done a lot this year and it was obviously amazing’. But even still, I have little flashbacks into thinking, ‘God, did I actually do that?’ I don’t know if that will ever go away.
Because I’d never won a major medal like that before, it was so unexpected for me, and then I was on a roll and then it just kind of kept happening. I don’t know if that pinch-me feeling will ever really go away.
This year was literally the perfect year for me, it couldn’t have went any better. That will probably be a memory that I’ll forever carry and forever think about. Over Christmas, because it does mark the end of the whole year, I’m hoping it’s a time where I can properly park everything that happened, because all the awards and stuff is all over. It’s gonna hopefully be a time where I can look back and be like, ‘Wow, that was a class year.’
I might speak about it with my family and Georgie and then for me, fully end that chapter and hopefully start a new chapter and just kind of move on. Although this year was class, I obviously want to continue doing it and I don’t want to sit in this year forever. I want to continue winning more medals, hopefully. That’s kind of my idea, I don’t know if it’ll go to plan like that.
Georgie Kelly (GK): I always think that the worst thing about sport at any level ends up being… I don’t know, Kate, if you think this, maybe you don’t, maybe you have a different opinion — but that you’re never really allowed to like sit and (enjoy). It’s always just the next thing.
It’s always just like, ‘What’s next?’ Even literally within days of Kate winning whatever medal, there’ll be people asking, ‘You’ll be looking forward to the Olympics?’ or, ‘Are you going for Olympic gold now?’ I’m like, ‘Can we not just relax here and enjoy this? Look what she’s done!’ It’s the same in all sports.
KOC: Maybe it’s awful to admit, but I am straight away thinking on to what the next thing is. I think that that’s only because of the competitor in me and how much I want more. And I know how hard I work and I want to be better.
Although it was great, all the medals that I won, I want to win gold and I want to be the best. And I have all these plans. When you do really well, it’s like, ‘God, I did class, but I know that I can be so much better here, here, here and here.’ So I was so excited to start back training so that I can progress into next year.
O'Connor celebrates her world silver medal. Morgan Treacy / INPHO
Morgan Treacy / INPHO / INPHO
It’s probably something that I have to get better at: sitting in the moment and being like, ‘Wow, that was class.’ I’ve ranted and raved quite a few times about how I really enjoyed how I celebrated my world silver medal by just sitting around with my coaches, not doing the thing that a lot of people do, going out and celebrating with a tonne and tonne of people. We just kept it very small and quiet, and I actually enjoyed the medals with the people that helped me get the medals. I have really fond memories of that. Yeah, maybe it is a bad trait that I just was straight away thinking, ‘What’s next?’
ED: Georgie, what was it like watching Kate this year? You see what goes in behind the scenes; we don’t see that.
GK: It was unreal. We’ve been together for three or four years now, and when you see the progress and the work, it makes it a bit more sweet.
Obviously, schedule-wise, it’s a nightmare. I didn’t get to the Olympics last year, I didn’t get to many of her events over the years, but I did somehow slip away for a few days and got over to the Netherlands for her first indoor medal. I was there in the stadium and that was nice. I’m so glad I got to that. That was unreal. I think you’ve said before, Kate, about the emotions and the rawness of that medal, because it was the first one, it was your first major medal. That was lovely being there and seeing you after it.
KOC: Yeah, that was good.
GK: That was lovely. Obviously, I didn’t get to the rest and then obviously the hype and the build up…
KOC: Do you know what actually? Sorry to cut in, but what was really good about Georgie being there… OK, it was lovely him being there for the medal and being there during the event. But for me, it was having a little bit of support whenever we went back to the hotel.
It was just really nice because it was really emotional for me. I didn’t get emotional really when I was getting the medal, but I remember we were just sitting chatting about it, I got really emotional and it was just nice for him to be there to support me, but also to go through that with me, because we have to go through so many things individually because of long distance, because we’re doing our sports in two different countries.
And it was just really nice for that first one, for us both to experience it together. And for me to feel like I had someone that I could be completely vulnerable with. For me, that was what was really nice about you being there.
ED: Kate, we spoke before and you said you’re both very different. Maybe explain that a little more and we’ll see if Georgie agrees?
KOC: I don’t really know how to… like, we’re different and similar in ways. Our outlooks on things are probably a little bit different. Georgie probably has way more opinions than me on this kind of topic, because he’s the one that would make me even notice it. I’m definitely not as much of a thinker as Georgie. Georgie’s like a really deep thinker…
GK: It’s a bad trait, by the way.
KOC: I would just go out and do, rather than letting things kind of fester in my head. But again, that can also be bad. I don’t know, we like a lot of different things.
GK: We are very different, I think. It’s nuanced. I used to always say you’d be way more competitive and way more driven, whereas I’d be a bit more kind of even-keeled. But then I don’t even know if that’s fully true either. I wouldn’t class me as not being competitive either. We’re built a little bit differently, like.
KOC: [Nods]
ED: In a sporting sense, or a more rounded life sense?
GK: I think that’s in every sense. Do you think, Kate, or not?
KOC: Yeah.
GK: I think we’re different in a lot of ways.
KOC: We are very different.
GK: But it kind of works good, I think.
KOC: Georgie’s a completely different athlete to me and has a completely different mindset as well. One thing that I think is really weird about Georgie is…
GK: Let it all out!
KOC: Outside of training, he’s happy to put in more work where I’m very much the type of person that’s like, ‘Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it to the best of my ability, but no more.’ Maybe that’s because my coaches give me incredibly difficult sessions where I actually can’t do anymore.
Georgie, you love training and you love the process, where I’m just more probably driven for the end goal of trying to win medals. I do love the training, but I don’t want it to consume every minute of my day. I don’t do it in my spare time. During my off-season, I don’t like even talking about sport, let alone doing sport, whereas Georgie would go to the gym during his off-season or go on runs.
Different. Not me. No way.
ED: Do you think maybe in a way it’s the different sports as well?
GK: Yeah, it probably is. We probably don’t get as much detail and we’re not as catered to because there’s 26 lads, whereas Kate, every minute of her day when she’s in there is pretty intense and full on and they’re making use of every hour to the hour.
Kelly (left) celebrates scoring for Carlisle United. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
KOC: I’m an individual sport and he’s a team sport and sometimes in team sports, not always, because obviously soccer, there’s such a small percentage of people that can be a soccer player, but whenever you’re in a team sport, you don’t need to be at 100% all the time, whereas for me, what we’ve learned is if you’re not 100% fit and you’re not 100% healthy, there’s no point in turning up competitions because you can’t compete with the top 1% of girls in the world. You just can’t do it and you just won’t perform where with a team, you can lean on people and that’s definitely something different, between the two of us.
What Georgie said there as well about attention to detail with different things, the stuff that we do is just way more detailed than what Georgie does, but again, it’s different. It’s a team and individual kind of sport. It’s always interesting to me listening to Georgie and how they do things in soccer because half of it would just never happen in the athletics world, no way.
ED: On that, Georgie, you spoke before about how Kate didn’t understand how if you got injured, your place and salary is secure. It’s a completely different story in most individual sports.
GK: Yeah, that side of it, the contracts and the long-termness of it all. It has probably changed a little bit now for Kate because she’s had such a good year, but all them Olympic athletes, all them people that Kate would be friends with, it’s horrible. It’s kind of a horrible industry to be in. You’re on your own, there’s no security.
KOC: It’s so true, actually. And it’s probably something that I’ve not really fully thought about. Obviously I was in the position last year, but the way that it works with athletics is if you’re not winning medals essentially, you’ve got very few sponsorships outside of Sport Ireland funding, which is mostly on a yearly basis. You’ve got your funding, but you mightn’t have that funding next year and it’s an unsteady income…
GK: It’s horrible. It must be horrible, mentally. I would struggle with it. The security means that you can relax so much more. A lot of lads probably end up doing less and easing through things, whereas athletics, you’re year-to-year.
I was speaking to Fintan (McCarthy) about this. His brother is a really good rower as well. Obviously Fintan is one of the top names in Ireland and everyone knows him, but there’s so many other ‘less known’ athletes who do so much work and graft and train like dogs, I imagine, just as hard as anyone else – definitely harder than loads of footballers – that aren’t rewarded that well. And then on top of that then, they have no security. So it just makes it all 10 times harder. At least that’s what I think anyway.
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KOC: Yeah.
ED: Talk to me about how ye first met. Am I wrong to presume it was while Georgie was at Dundalk?
KOC: I’ll let Georgie take this one!
GK: Yeah, it was while I was at Dundalk. I was actually living in more or less the same estate. I was in a house with a few of the lads and Kate was literally living around the corner.
KOC: It was just before Covid, wasn’t it?
GK: Just before Covid, yeah.
KOC: No, the end of Covid? Was it at the end of Covid or the start of Covid?
GK: Sorry, you’re right. It was at the start kind of, yeah.
Kelly during his time at Dundalk. Ryan Byrne / INPHO
Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO
KOC: We started actually chatting halfway through Covid, because we met then as soon as Covid bans were lifted.
GK: I don’t know what it was, you might have won something or done something so I saw you locally. I don’t know how it was. I just picked up a bit of courage and messaged her on Instagram.
KOC: We messaged for a long time because of lockdown, and then we met up. It’s actually kind of funny. All you could do was go for a walk at that time; everything else was completely shut down.
GK: Which is a great first date!
KOC: It was! Georgie had asked me to meet a couple of times during lockdown. My family was very strict, we weren’t leaving during lockdown. I was like, ‘No, that’s not happening.’ But then when lockdown did lift, obviously I wanted to meet him. He had asked me twice at that stage…
GK: Persistent!
KOC: I was like, ‘There’s this really nice walk that I’ve heard of.’ He was like, ‘Oh you’ll have to show me.’ I had never been to this walk before. I was so nervous to meet him. I told my brother that I was going and as I was leaving, I actually turned around and went back into the house. I was like, ‘No, I can’t do this. I’m too scared.’ He was like, ‘Go!’
I obviously hadn’t checked out the walk at all, I assumed it wasn’t going to be that long. It brought us right around the town of Dundalk. I felt really bad. It was dark by the time we got back. It probably took us like three-and-a-half hours to do the walk. Oh God, how embarrassing.
GK: It didn’t feel like that. It flew in!
KOC: I actually thought that he must have had loads of questions lined up. But now knowing him, I just know that Georgie is a real question-asker, where I’m not. I’m terrible at asking questions. But we just spoke the whole time. That was it really. Went home and then he had messaged me pretty quickly to then see if we wanted to meet up again. But pretty quickly you left and you were living in Dublin, playing for Pat’s and then Bohs. We’ve kind of been long distance pretty much ever since we got together.
GK: Yeah.
ED: So a Camino around Dundalk basically started it all!
[Both laugh]
O'Connor realising she has won a silver medal at worlds. Morgan Treacy / INPHO
Morgan Treacy / INPHO / INPHO
ED: I’d imagine the conversation came pretty easy. You could kind of connect over sport. It was a nice crutch if needed?
KOC: Well, Georgie’s really interested in athletics since I met him. He took a real interest in me and athletics, and since then, I would call him an athletics fan. He knows things before I know things. And he knows things about the other athletes that I don’t even know, just because he keeps up with them all. It’s probably been a little bit more tough for me to get into soccer. Is that awful to say? Now, I like Georgie and I follow him and any team that he’s playing for. But apart from that, it would be one of the last things to call me, a soccer fan.
GK: The difference is I’ve always been into athletics.
KOC: Well you used to do it.
GK: That made it much easier.
KOC: His brothers were great athletes, by the way!
GK: They were alright.
KOC: They were! They won All-Ireland medals and stuff.
GK: We ran with Finn Valley in Donegal, and we would have done loads of athletics. But I just mean in general, watching athletics, I would have been interested. It’s different for you, I wouldn’t expect you to be as interested in soccer. It’s not the same. But since then, I am athletics-obsessed and I love athletics.
KOC: So let’s get it out there: I do like Georgie’s team and I follow his team, whatever team he plays for.
ED: What’s the team called?
[Both laugh]
KOC: Carlisle!
ED: How big is that support and mutual understanding of what one another is going through at any given time, whether it be good, bad, indifferent, injured, fit etc?
KOC: I feel like I’ve been able to try to offer Georgie… maybe it’s a soccer thing, but they just plough on through injuries until they have to stop and it’s something that you don’t really do in athletics, you’ve got to stop and deal with things. I feel like I’ve maybe helped Georgie be able to speak up a little bit more about the things that he needs or how it is, because that is the way that soccer is. You’re on a conveyor belt and if you’re not good enough or you’re not playing well enough, they’ll get someone else in. I think you’ve got to be very selfish and single-minded to get yourself right. Otherwise, the next person will come in and take your spot. That’s something that me and Georgie have spoken a lot about with regards to him.
With me, Georgie offers me a lot of rational thinking. I am a very emotional kind of person. Say, if I get injured, it can be like my world’s ending and I’m like, ‘Ugh, how is this happening?’ Georgie makes me see the light at the end of the tunnel (and have) a different view on situations. At that European Champs that he was at, just before the 800m run whenever I was like sitting in fourth place and at that time, I didn’t see a way out of finishing in fourth. I called him crying, I was like, ‘I’ve done so well, but what am I supposed to do here?’ Obviously, my coaches, we had gone through it, but at that time, I just didn’t see a way out. It was nice, you believed that I could do it…
GK: I did believe, yeah.
Kelly goes off injured in the 2021 FAI Cup final, which Bohemians lost to St Pat's. Ryan Byrne / INPHO
Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO
KOC: Hearing another sportsperson, obviously also your boyfriend, just believing in you probably just gave me that extra little bit of (belief). Obviously my dad and my other coach Tom are going to believe in me, but it’s just like another person that I’m very close with also saying to me that they believe in me, is also nice to have.
GK: People always say this and always ask us this, ‘Youse are both sportspeople so it must be nice, you can connect and all…’ It’s also not easy and not nice a lot of the times because either one of us is either really tired or travelling or away. There’s always an issue.
KOC: Yeah. I had an event that I invited to him this evening, and he can’t come. He can’t come to any of my awards, actually.
GK: I missed the graduation yesterday, which was sad. People always say, ‘It must be nice, youse are both athletes,’ but at the same time, it’s awful as well in terms of we miss so much of each other’s major events and different things. Maybe it is better than say if I had a normal job or you had a normal job, but I don’t know, it’s still difficult. We have got better, I think, at managing it, but it’s definitely not easy. I wouldn’t just say we’ve cracked it, like.
KOC: Yeah. It’s not even like we’ve cracked it. It would never be easy for anybody.
GK: No.
KOC: Selfishly again, being a sportsperson, it does have its pros in that you have no distraction. Well, I have no distraction and I feel like it’s the same for you.
GK: Yeah.
KOC: I train for three full weeks and I don’t really do too much outside of that, apart from I might meet up with the girls for a coffee or something for the weekend. And then on the fourth week, I get a couple of days off, so I’ll come over to see Georgie during that time.
For those three weeks, I’m fully locked into sport and the only thing I have to worry about is me. And that’s great, but at the same time, there’s times when it’s not so great because you’d love your person to also be there with you. It does have its pros and cons from my point of view.
GK: Yeah.
O'Connor lets fly. Morgan Treacy / INPHO
Morgan Treacy / INPHO / INPHO
ED: That was actually my next question, both of your schedules are obviously hectic, you’re based in different countries, when do you see each other? So it is that week towards the end of the block?
KOC: Yeah, or Georgie gets some sporadic days off. So he’s coming over (to Ireland) this weekend and then I’m going over, because it’s my fourth week, the following weekend. So we’ll see each other quite a lot now for the next little while, which will be nice.
GK: But with the way it works, it could be five or six weeks then the next time.
KOC: You came over to training camp with me before. It was Georgie’s off-season and I was training in Portugal. Actually, twice – you came to Tenerife and Portugal. So that’s like our holidays. I’m training and it’s Georgie’s of- season, which I think he probably likes?
GK: I do like it, yeah. But at the same time, it’s not like normal. We don’t really get normal holidays, because either one of us is (in season). Either, she comes over to me in her off-season and I’ll be playing, bed early and blah, blah, blah, or vice versa. It’s not really normal, like. The pros do probably outweigh the cons, I think.
KOC: For now!
GK: It’s short-term.
KOC: Whenever it’s kind of shitty and you’re like, ‘Ugh, this is horrible,’ because that does happen a lot. And it’s probably happening a little bit more recently because I kind of feel like I would love him to be home — and I know obviously he’s pursuing his sport and he’s got to do that. Where was I going to go with that? What the hell was I just going to say?
GK: It’s just hard. It’s just hard.
KOC: Yeah, it’s just hard.
ED: It is shit at times, and there’s no trying to dress it up, but I’d imagine there’s a lot of FaceTimes and texting and when you get that quality time together, it must be so special?
KOC: Definitely. That’s actually a pro of it too. If someone ever asks me what’s a pro of long distance, whenever we spend time together, we always have a good time.
GK: Yeah, we do.
KOC: You’ve obviously blocked that time out for just specifically each other. We’re always doing something fun or just even just chilling together and watching a movie is also really fun because we don’t get to do it that often. I sometimes prefer the evenings where we’re doing nothing because we can just sit and chat and it’s nice to not be speaking over FaceTime.
GK: We don’t see each other enough to get sick of each other!
KOC: It also is a little bit scary. I’ve said this to Georgie, in the future, whenever we’re living together, how that’s going to go? It’s going to be weird seeing each other a tonne. I’m a bit worried about what we’re going to speak about every day!
ED: Do ye talk about sport much? Some people just want to switch off. Kate mentioned it earlier when she’s off, she’s off? Or is it always there?
GK: I would say Kate — I don’t know what you think — but you used to be so much worse. It would be like pulling teeth trying to like ask Kate about like her training or what she was doing or is she progressing here?
You could sense that you just didn’t want to talk about this. She’d rather talk about anything else, but I think we’ve got so much better now, because I love all the details: what she was doing, did she change this plio session, nutrition, what’s she’s trying. For some reason I like all of this. We would probably talk about that quite a bit. How training went or was there an issue with this or whatever. I feel like we do, Kate, probably now more than we used to.
Pictured together during the summer. Kate O'Connor Instagram.
Kate O'Connor Instagram.
KOC: Yeah, possibly. I definitely did have the view of I liked training, then parking training and leaving. And then that was probably when Georgie would be asking me about it, in my head, I’m like, ‘Ugh.’
Like I said earlier, I just like to park sport and then just move on from it. I didn’t want to be speaking about it really. I felt like it had already happened and people that were there experienced it with me. And that took me a long time to be able to understand that Georgie wanted to be included in that and know what the craic was, so I’d have to speak about it. Our whole relationship is not based around sport.
GK: No.
KOC: Okay, we talk about sport a bit, but maybe it’s more pushed by me that we don’t speak about sport a tonne just because I don’t love speaking about sport a tonne. We more would fill each other in on what’s going on with us. But like, outside of that, we don’t speak about sport the whole time.
GK: We’re normal. No, we are normal!
ED: When ye get those days together is it chill out, go for a coffee, go for a walk, a Camino around Carlisle perhaps?
GK: It is normally chill. We’d go for food. We’ll go to cinema maybe this weekend?
KOC: Yeah! We always plan to do something out and about. It just depends. Over Christmas, we’re actually gonna spend a couple of days in London, which will be lovely. And Georgie’s Christmas present to me is going to be him organising a full day.
ED: And how’s that going?
GK: We haven’t started yet, but we’ll get there!
KOC: Hopefully that will be done well! It just depends. It depends on our schedules. I could be going over to see Georgie and he could be playing a game the next night, and we’ll just have a night in because he’s got to keep to his normal schedule. Other times, I could come over and he’s got a few days off or vice versa, it just depends. But again, because we don’t see each other that often, for me anyway, I enjoy it.
ED: What does Christmas look like? I know ye mentioned London there, but you have a busy schedule of games Georgie, so is it just planning around that and Kate’s training?
GK: Yeah, it’s just trying to manage it. We have a lot of games, I’ll not be able to get home. We just plan around it as much as we can, days change, schedules change and stuff.
KOC: We’re going to London because your game’s there. That’s how we have to work it. He’s there, so I’ll fly over to meet him, and he has a day off after so we’ll stay for a day. That’s the way that our relationship works. It works around sport and then we try to fit each other in around it. Sport is the main… not the main priority, but one of the biggest things in our lives, and we try to make each other work as well as we can around it. But it’s not always the easiest.
ED: I can imagine. Georgie, ye have a game on St Stephen’s Day, it’s obviously such a busy time for football in England. How do those weeks look for you?
GK: Kind of just like normal weeks. Maybe it’s a bit sad but it’s not that Christmassy, because you’re in so much. There’s so many games, you’re training, playing, training playing, in most days. In some ways it’s kind of nice, you’re still with a big group and the craic’s good, and it flies in because there’s so many games.
The last couple of Christmasses, because I had so many injuries and issues, I had actually been off and got home. This will be one of the first ones where I’m playing right through it so I’ll be able to see how it is. It’s not too bad, it doesn’t bother me too much.
Manchester United and Wales legend Mark Hughes is Kelly's manager at Carlisle. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
ED: Your manager, Mark Hughes, is obviously a big name in the game. What’s it like working under him, and what can you learn from him as a striker?
GK: Yeah, obviously a huge name. God, everywhere I go at home they’re all Mark Hughes-obsessed! All the United fans. He’s an icon of the game, one of the great strikers in football history. He has a lot of wisdom, he’s been great for us. We’ve done quite well this year so far, we’re up there or thereabouts. He’s been really good.
ED: And on the topic of coaches and management teams, Kate, your dad won a big World Athletics award recently. Just a word on him, and the work he and your team have done?
KOC: It was lovely for him. He puts in an insane amount of work behind the scenes. Although I put a lot of work in on the track, he makes the whole team work. That’s the thing about multi-events, this has never really happened in the country before, so there was no guidance or path for us to follow. I’m so lucky that my dad picked it up when he did, but has also stuck by me the whole way through.
Although I have said quite a few times, having him 100% in my corner is amazing – and it is – but to have him help me pick who coaches me and who stays around is also really important. He’s able to pick out smart people, and (knows) who’s right and wrong to be around. Obviously with what we’ve done this year, we’ve picked great people to help us. My dad doesn’t just do all my coaching, he’s basically my manager, he looks after all of my media stuff…
GK: He does so much.
KOC: It was just so nice. It’s normally me winning the awards and me winning the medals, and although I try to say it as much as I can that there’s so much help, it was just nice. He was buzzing with himself! He kept trying to act all chill.
GK: Nonchalant!
KOC: Yeah, but he was buzzing. It’s rare that coaches in Ireland get such big recognition and it was lovely that World Athletics recognised him so highly. I think my dad doesn’t realise sometimes how good he actually is at what he does. He’s an incredible organiser, the way that he structures everything and is able to make the team work, I couldn’t do it myself, I actually need him to do it and he’s great at it.
I was delighted for him to win something like that, that doesn’t happen every day. I think last year it was Keely Hodgkinson’s coach, Trevor Painter, who is a huge name and a big coach in the athletics world, so for my dad to win it after him… he was the one that actually told me that, he looked it up!
O'Connor with her father and coach Michael and mother Valerie. Bryan Keane / INPHO
Bryan Keane / INPHO / INPHO
GK: He’s the first Irish coach in like 40 years, and the other one was living somewhere else, training someone else. First ever Irish coach of an Irish athlete to win that award, like.
KOC: It was lovely for him to get that recognition.
ED: What was the first meeting with Michael like, Georgie?
GK: He’s a big football man, so it was alright! A big Dundalk fan at the time so we were grand. I was nervous, like.
KOC: He was so nervous when they first met. He had big sweat patches under his armpits!
GK: Did I? Ah, I’m a sweaty person anyway. But I handled it well. Me and Michael get on good.
KOC: You get on really well with my whole family. My brother and sister love him, you get on really well with both of them.
GK: And your mum, and Valerie!
KOC: And my mam and my dad. You get on with everyone.
The transcript was lightly edited for length and clarity
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'Our whole relationship is not based around sport': When The 42 met Kate O'Connor and Georgie Kelly
BY HER OWN admission, 2025 was “the perfect year” for Kate O’Connor.
The Irish multi-event athlete won silver medals at the World Championships — both outdoor and indoor — gold at the World University Games, and bronze at European Indoors.
She’s smashed records, broken barriers, and has been widely honoured throughout awards season.
O’Connor is “unquestionably the better half” of a sporting power couple, as her boyfriend Georgie Kelly often points out.
Kelly is a footballer with Carlisle United in England’s National Football League, having previously played for O’Connor’s local club Dundalk, among others.
In the build-up to Christmas, O’Connor and Kelly took time out of their busy schedules to join The 42 for a Zoom call.
Emma Duffy (ED): 2025 has been phenomenal for you, Kate. Do you have a little bit of time to reflect on it now? I know you’re busy training again but do you have some time and space around now to take stock?
Kate O’Connor (KOC): I suppose I’ve reflected on it during my off season and that was kind of the moment where I was like, ‘Wow, you’ve done a lot this year and it was obviously amazing’. But even still, I have little flashbacks into thinking, ‘God, did I actually do that?’ I don’t know if that will ever go away.
Because I’d never won a major medal like that before, it was so unexpected for me, and then I was on a roll and then it just kind of kept happening. I don’t know if that pinch-me feeling will ever really go away.
This year was literally the perfect year for me, it couldn’t have went any better. That will probably be a memory that I’ll forever carry and forever think about. Over Christmas, because it does mark the end of the whole year, I’m hoping it’s a time where I can properly park everything that happened, because all the awards and stuff is all over. It’s gonna hopefully be a time where I can look back and be like, ‘Wow, that was a class year.’
I might speak about it with my family and Georgie and then for me, fully end that chapter and hopefully start a new chapter and just kind of move on. Although this year was class, I obviously want to continue doing it and I don’t want to sit in this year forever. I want to continue winning more medals, hopefully. That’s kind of my idea, I don’t know if it’ll go to plan like that.
Georgie Kelly (GK): I always think that the worst thing about sport at any level ends up being… I don’t know, Kate, if you think this, maybe you don’t, maybe you have a different opinion — but that you’re never really allowed to like sit and (enjoy). It’s always just the next thing.
It’s always just like, ‘What’s next?’ Even literally within days of Kate winning whatever medal, there’ll be people asking, ‘You’ll be looking forward to the Olympics?’ or, ‘Are you going for Olympic gold now?’ I’m like, ‘Can we not just relax here and enjoy this? Look what she’s done!’ It’s the same in all sports.
KOC: Maybe it’s awful to admit, but I am straight away thinking on to what the next thing is. I think that that’s only because of the competitor in me and how much I want more. And I know how hard I work and I want to be better.
Although it was great, all the medals that I won, I want to win gold and I want to be the best. And I have all these plans. When you do really well, it’s like, ‘God, I did class, but I know that I can be so much better here, here, here and here.’ So I was so excited to start back training so that I can progress into next year.
It’s probably something that I have to get better at: sitting in the moment and being like, ‘Wow, that was class.’ I’ve ranted and raved quite a few times about how I really enjoyed how I celebrated my world silver medal by just sitting around with my coaches, not doing the thing that a lot of people do, going out and celebrating with a tonne and tonne of people. We just kept it very small and quiet, and I actually enjoyed the medals with the people that helped me get the medals. I have really fond memories of that. Yeah, maybe it is a bad trait that I just was straight away thinking, ‘What’s next?’
ED: Georgie, what was it like watching Kate this year? You see what goes in behind the scenes; we don’t see that.
GK: It was unreal. We’ve been together for three or four years now, and when you see the progress and the work, it makes it a bit more sweet.
Obviously, schedule-wise, it’s a nightmare. I didn’t get to the Olympics last year, I didn’t get to many of her events over the years, but I did somehow slip away for a few days and got over to the Netherlands for her first indoor medal. I was there in the stadium and that was nice. I’m so glad I got to that. That was unreal. I think you’ve said before, Kate, about the emotions and the rawness of that medal, because it was the first one, it was your first major medal. That was lovely being there and seeing you after it.
KOC: Yeah, that was good.
GK: That was lovely. Obviously, I didn’t get to the rest and then obviously the hype and the build up…
KOC: Do you know what actually? Sorry to cut in, but what was really good about Georgie being there… OK, it was lovely him being there for the medal and being there during the event. But for me, it was having a little bit of support whenever we went back to the hotel.
It was just really nice because it was really emotional for me. I didn’t get emotional really when I was getting the medal, but I remember we were just sitting chatting about it, I got really emotional and it was just nice for him to be there to support me, but also to go through that with me, because we have to go through so many things individually because of long distance, because we’re doing our sports in two different countries.
And it was just really nice for that first one, for us both to experience it together. And for me to feel like I had someone that I could be completely vulnerable with. For me, that was what was really nice about you being there.
GK: Yeah, that was lovely.
ED: Kate, we spoke before and you said you’re both very different. Maybe explain that a little more and we’ll see if Georgie agrees?
KOC: I don’t really know how to… like, we’re different and similar in ways. Our outlooks on things are probably a little bit different. Georgie probably has way more opinions than me on this kind of topic, because he’s the one that would make me even notice it. I’m definitely not as much of a thinker as Georgie. Georgie’s like a really deep thinker…
GK: It’s a bad trait, by the way.
KOC: I would just go out and do, rather than letting things kind of fester in my head. But again, that can also be bad. I don’t know, we like a lot of different things.
GK: We are very different, I think. It’s nuanced. I used to always say you’d be way more competitive and way more driven, whereas I’d be a bit more kind of even-keeled. But then I don’t even know if that’s fully true either. I wouldn’t class me as not being competitive either. We’re built a little bit differently, like.
KOC: [Nods]
ED: In a sporting sense, or a more rounded life sense?
GK: I think that’s in every sense. Do you think, Kate, or not?
KOC: Yeah.
GK: I think we’re different in a lot of ways.
KOC: We are very different.
GK: But it kind of works good, I think.
KOC: Georgie’s a completely different athlete to me and has a completely different mindset as well. One thing that I think is really weird about Georgie is…
GK: Let it all out!
KOC: Outside of training, he’s happy to put in more work where I’m very much the type of person that’s like, ‘Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it to the best of my ability, but no more.’ Maybe that’s because my coaches give me incredibly difficult sessions where I actually can’t do anymore.
Georgie, you love training and you love the process, where I’m just more probably driven for the end goal of trying to win medals. I do love the training, but I don’t want it to consume every minute of my day. I don’t do it in my spare time. During my off-season, I don’t like even talking about sport, let alone doing sport, whereas Georgie would go to the gym during his off-season or go on runs.
Different. Not me. No way.
ED: Do you think maybe in a way it’s the different sports as well?
GK: Yeah, it probably is. We probably don’t get as much detail and we’re not as catered to because there’s 26 lads, whereas Kate, every minute of her day when she’s in there is pretty intense and full on and they’re making use of every hour to the hour.
KOC: I’m an individual sport and he’s a team sport and sometimes in team sports, not always, because obviously soccer, there’s such a small percentage of people that can be a soccer player, but whenever you’re in a team sport, you don’t need to be at 100% all the time, whereas for me, what we’ve learned is if you’re not 100% fit and you’re not 100% healthy, there’s no point in turning up competitions because you can’t compete with the top 1% of girls in the world. You just can’t do it and you just won’t perform where with a team, you can lean on people and that’s definitely something different, between the two of us.
What Georgie said there as well about attention to detail with different things, the stuff that we do is just way more detailed than what Georgie does, but again, it’s different. It’s a team and individual kind of sport. It’s always interesting to me listening to Georgie and how they do things in soccer because half of it would just never happen in the athletics world, no way.
ED: On that, Georgie, you spoke before about how Kate didn’t understand how if you got injured, your place and salary is secure. It’s a completely different story in most individual sports.
GK: Yeah, that side of it, the contracts and the long-termness of it all. It has probably changed a little bit now for Kate because she’s had such a good year, but all them Olympic athletes, all them people that Kate would be friends with, it’s horrible. It’s kind of a horrible industry to be in. You’re on your own, there’s no security.
KOC: It’s so true, actually. And it’s probably something that I’ve not really fully thought about. Obviously I was in the position last year, but the way that it works with athletics is if you’re not winning medals essentially, you’ve got very few sponsorships outside of Sport Ireland funding, which is mostly on a yearly basis. You’ve got your funding, but you mightn’t have that funding next year and it’s an unsteady income…
GK: It’s horrible. It must be horrible, mentally. I would struggle with it. The security means that you can relax so much more. A lot of lads probably end up doing less and easing through things, whereas athletics, you’re year-to-year.
I was speaking to Fintan (McCarthy) about this. His brother is a really good rower as well. Obviously Fintan is one of the top names in Ireland and everyone knows him, but there’s so many other ‘less known’ athletes who do so much work and graft and train like dogs, I imagine, just as hard as anyone else – definitely harder than loads of footballers – that aren’t rewarded that well. And then on top of that then, they have no security. So it just makes it all 10 times harder. At least that’s what I think anyway.
KOC: Yeah.
ED: Talk to me about how ye first met. Am I wrong to presume it was while Georgie was at Dundalk?
KOC: I’ll let Georgie take this one!
GK: Yeah, it was while I was at Dundalk. I was actually living in more or less the same estate. I was in a house with a few of the lads and Kate was literally living around the corner.
KOC: It was just before Covid, wasn’t it?
GK: Just before Covid, yeah.
KOC: No, the end of Covid? Was it at the end of Covid or the start of Covid?
GK: Sorry, you’re right. It was at the start kind of, yeah.
KOC: We started actually chatting halfway through Covid, because we met then as soon as Covid bans were lifted.
GK: I don’t know what it was, you might have won something or done something so I saw you locally. I don’t know how it was. I just picked up a bit of courage and messaged her on Instagram.
KOC: We messaged for a long time because of lockdown, and then we met up. It’s actually kind of funny. All you could do was go for a walk at that time; everything else was completely shut down.
GK: Which is a great first date!
KOC: It was! Georgie had asked me to meet a couple of times during lockdown. My family was very strict, we weren’t leaving during lockdown. I was like, ‘No, that’s not happening.’ But then when lockdown did lift, obviously I wanted to meet him. He had asked me twice at that stage…
GK: Persistent!
KOC: I was like, ‘There’s this really nice walk that I’ve heard of.’ He was like, ‘Oh you’ll have to show me.’ I had never been to this walk before. I was so nervous to meet him. I told my brother that I was going and as I was leaving, I actually turned around and went back into the house. I was like, ‘No, I can’t do this. I’m too scared.’ He was like, ‘Go!’
I obviously hadn’t checked out the walk at all, I assumed it wasn’t going to be that long. It brought us right around the town of Dundalk. I felt really bad. It was dark by the time we got back. It probably took us like three-and-a-half hours to do the walk. Oh God, how embarrassing.
GK: It didn’t feel like that. It flew in!
KOC: I actually thought that he must have had loads of questions lined up. But now knowing him, I just know that Georgie is a real question-asker, where I’m not. I’m terrible at asking questions. But we just spoke the whole time. That was it really. Went home and then he had messaged me pretty quickly to then see if we wanted to meet up again. But pretty quickly you left and you were living in Dublin, playing for Pat’s and then Bohs. We’ve kind of been long distance pretty much ever since we got together.
GK: Yeah.
ED: So a Camino around Dundalk basically started it all!
[Both laugh]
ED: I’d imagine the conversation came pretty easy. You could kind of connect over sport. It was a nice crutch if needed?
KOC: Well, Georgie’s really interested in athletics since I met him. He took a real interest in me and athletics, and since then, I would call him an athletics fan. He knows things before I know things. And he knows things about the other athletes that I don’t even know, just because he keeps up with them all. It’s probably been a little bit more tough for me to get into soccer. Is that awful to say? Now, I like Georgie and I follow him and any team that he’s playing for. But apart from that, it would be one of the last things to call me, a soccer fan.
GK: The difference is I’ve always been into athletics.
KOC: Well you used to do it.
GK: That made it much easier.
KOC: His brothers were great athletes, by the way!
GK: They were alright.
KOC: They were! They won All-Ireland medals and stuff.
GK: We ran with Finn Valley in Donegal, and we would have done loads of athletics. But I just mean in general, watching athletics, I would have been interested. It’s different for you, I wouldn’t expect you to be as interested in soccer. It’s not the same. But since then, I am athletics-obsessed and I love athletics.
KOC: So let’s get it out there: I do like Georgie’s team and I follow his team, whatever team he plays for.
ED: What’s the team called?
[Both laugh]
KOC: Carlisle!
ED: How big is that support and mutual understanding of what one another is going through at any given time, whether it be good, bad, indifferent, injured, fit etc?
KOC: I feel like I’ve been able to try to offer Georgie… maybe it’s a soccer thing, but they just plough on through injuries until they have to stop and it’s something that you don’t really do in athletics, you’ve got to stop and deal with things. I feel like I’ve maybe helped Georgie be able to speak up a little bit more about the things that he needs or how it is, because that is the way that soccer is. You’re on a conveyor belt and if you’re not good enough or you’re not playing well enough, they’ll get someone else in. I think you’ve got to be very selfish and single-minded to get yourself right. Otherwise, the next person will come in and take your spot. That’s something that me and Georgie have spoken a lot about with regards to him.
With me, Georgie offers me a lot of rational thinking. I am a very emotional kind of person. Say, if I get injured, it can be like my world’s ending and I’m like, ‘Ugh, how is this happening?’ Georgie makes me see the light at the end of the tunnel (and have) a different view on situations. At that European Champs that he was at, just before the 800m run whenever I was like sitting in fourth place and at that time, I didn’t see a way out of finishing in fourth. I called him crying, I was like, ‘I’ve done so well, but what am I supposed to do here?’ Obviously, my coaches, we had gone through it, but at that time, I just didn’t see a way out. It was nice, you believed that I could do it…
GK: I did believe, yeah.
KOC: Hearing another sportsperson, obviously also your boyfriend, just believing in you probably just gave me that extra little bit of (belief). Obviously my dad and my other coach Tom are going to believe in me, but it’s just like another person that I’m very close with also saying to me that they believe in me, is also nice to have.
GK: People always say this and always ask us this, ‘Youse are both sportspeople so it must be nice, you can connect and all…’ It’s also not easy and not nice a lot of the times because either one of us is either really tired or travelling or away. There’s always an issue.
KOC: Yeah. I had an event that I invited to him this evening, and he can’t come. He can’t come to any of my awards, actually.
GK: I missed the graduation yesterday, which was sad. People always say, ‘It must be nice, youse are both athletes,’ but at the same time, it’s awful as well in terms of we miss so much of each other’s major events and different things. Maybe it is better than say if I had a normal job or you had a normal job, but I don’t know, it’s still difficult. We have got better, I think, at managing it, but it’s definitely not easy. I wouldn’t just say we’ve cracked it, like.
KOC: Yeah. It’s not even like we’ve cracked it. It would never be easy for anybody.
GK: No.
KOC: Selfishly again, being a sportsperson, it does have its pros in that you have no distraction. Well, I have no distraction and I feel like it’s the same for you.
GK: Yeah.
KOC: I train for three full weeks and I don’t really do too much outside of that, apart from I might meet up with the girls for a coffee or something for the weekend. And then on the fourth week, I get a couple of days off, so I’ll come over to see Georgie during that time.
For those three weeks, I’m fully locked into sport and the only thing I have to worry about is me. And that’s great, but at the same time, there’s times when it’s not so great because you’d love your person to also be there with you. It does have its pros and cons from my point of view.
GK: Yeah.
ED: That was actually my next question, both of your schedules are obviously hectic, you’re based in different countries, when do you see each other? So it is that week towards the end of the block?
KOC: Yeah, or Georgie gets some sporadic days off. So he’s coming over (to Ireland) this weekend and then I’m going over, because it’s my fourth week, the following weekend. So we’ll see each other quite a lot now for the next little while, which will be nice.
GK: But with the way it works, it could be five or six weeks then the next time.
KOC: You came over to training camp with me before. It was Georgie’s off-season and I was training in Portugal. Actually, twice – you came to Tenerife and Portugal. So that’s like our holidays. I’m training and it’s Georgie’s of- season, which I think he probably likes?
GK: I do like it, yeah. But at the same time, it’s not like normal. We don’t really get normal holidays, because either one of us is (in season). Either, she comes over to me in her off-season and I’ll be playing, bed early and blah, blah, blah, or vice versa. It’s not really normal, like. The pros do probably outweigh the cons, I think.
KOC: For now!
GK: It’s short-term.
KOC: Whenever it’s kind of shitty and you’re like, ‘Ugh, this is horrible,’ because that does happen a lot. And it’s probably happening a little bit more recently because I kind of feel like I would love him to be home — and I know obviously he’s pursuing his sport and he’s got to do that. Where was I going to go with that? What the hell was I just going to say?
GK: It’s just hard. It’s just hard.
KOC: Yeah, it’s just hard.
ED: It is shit at times, and there’s no trying to dress it up, but I’d imagine there’s a lot of FaceTimes and texting and when you get that quality time together, it must be so special?
KOC: Definitely. That’s actually a pro of it too. If someone ever asks me what’s a pro of long distance, whenever we spend time together, we always have a good time.
GK: Yeah, we do.
KOC: You’ve obviously blocked that time out for just specifically each other. We’re always doing something fun or just even just chilling together and watching a movie is also really fun because we don’t get to do it that often. I sometimes prefer the evenings where we’re doing nothing because we can just sit and chat and it’s nice to not be speaking over FaceTime.
GK: We don’t see each other enough to get sick of each other!
KOC: It also is a little bit scary. I’ve said this to Georgie, in the future, whenever we’re living together, how that’s going to go? It’s going to be weird seeing each other a tonne. I’m a bit worried about what we’re going to speak about every day!
ED: Do ye talk about sport much? Some people just want to switch off. Kate mentioned it earlier when she’s off, she’s off? Or is it always there?
GK: I would say Kate — I don’t know what you think — but you used to be so much worse. It would be like pulling teeth trying to like ask Kate about like her training or what she was doing or is she progressing here?
You could sense that you just didn’t want to talk about this. She’d rather talk about anything else, but I think we’ve got so much better now, because I love all the details: what she was doing, did she change this plio session, nutrition, what’s she’s trying. For some reason I like all of this. We would probably talk about that quite a bit. How training went or was there an issue with this or whatever. I feel like we do, Kate, probably now more than we used to.
KOC: Yeah, possibly. I definitely did have the view of I liked training, then parking training and leaving. And then that was probably when Georgie would be asking me about it, in my head, I’m like, ‘Ugh.’
Like I said earlier, I just like to park sport and then just move on from it. I didn’t want to be speaking about it really. I felt like it had already happened and people that were there experienced it with me. And that took me a long time to be able to understand that Georgie wanted to be included in that and know what the craic was, so I’d have to speak about it. Our whole relationship is not based around sport.
GK: No.
KOC: Okay, we talk about sport a bit, but maybe it’s more pushed by me that we don’t speak about sport a tonne just because I don’t love speaking about sport a tonne. We more would fill each other in on what’s going on with us. But like, outside of that, we don’t speak about sport the whole time.
GK: We’re normal. No, we are normal!
ED: When ye get those days together is it chill out, go for a coffee, go for a walk, a Camino around Carlisle perhaps?
GK: It is normally chill. We’d go for food. We’ll go to cinema maybe this weekend?
KOC: Yeah! We always plan to do something out and about. It just depends. Over Christmas, we’re actually gonna spend a couple of days in London, which will be lovely. And Georgie’s Christmas present to me is going to be him organising a full day.
ED: And how’s that going?
GK: We haven’t started yet, but we’ll get there!
KOC: Hopefully that will be done well! It just depends. It depends on our schedules. I could be going over to see Georgie and he could be playing a game the next night, and we’ll just have a night in because he’s got to keep to his normal schedule. Other times, I could come over and he’s got a few days off or vice versa, it just depends. But again, because we don’t see each other that often, for me anyway, I enjoy it.
ED: What does Christmas look like? I know ye mentioned London there, but you have a busy schedule of games Georgie, so is it just planning around that and Kate’s training?
GK: Yeah, it’s just trying to manage it. We have a lot of games, I’ll not be able to get home. We just plan around it as much as we can, days change, schedules change and stuff.
KOC: We’re going to London because your game’s there. That’s how we have to work it. He’s there, so I’ll fly over to meet him, and he has a day off after so we’ll stay for a day. That’s the way that our relationship works. It works around sport and then we try to fit each other in around it. Sport is the main… not the main priority, but one of the biggest things in our lives, and we try to make each other work as well as we can around it. But it’s not always the easiest.
ED: I can imagine. Georgie, ye have a game on St Stephen’s Day, it’s obviously such a busy time for football in England. How do those weeks look for you?
GK: Kind of just like normal weeks. Maybe it’s a bit sad but it’s not that Christmassy, because you’re in so much. There’s so many games, you’re training, playing, training playing, in most days. In some ways it’s kind of nice, you’re still with a big group and the craic’s good, and it flies in because there’s so many games.
The last couple of Christmasses, because I had so many injuries and issues, I had actually been off and got home. This will be one of the first ones where I’m playing right through it so I’ll be able to see how it is. It’s not too bad, it doesn’t bother me too much.
ED: Your manager, Mark Hughes, is obviously a big name in the game. What’s it like working under him, and what can you learn from him as a striker?
GK: Yeah, obviously a huge name. God, everywhere I go at home they’re all Mark Hughes-obsessed! All the United fans. He’s an icon of the game, one of the great strikers in football history. He has a lot of wisdom, he’s been great for us. We’ve done quite well this year so far, we’re up there or thereabouts. He’s been really good.
ED: And on the topic of coaches and management teams, Kate, your dad won a big World Athletics award recently. Just a word on him, and the work he and your team have done?
KOC: It was lovely for him. He puts in an insane amount of work behind the scenes. Although I put a lot of work in on the track, he makes the whole team work. That’s the thing about multi-events, this has never really happened in the country before, so there was no guidance or path for us to follow. I’m so lucky that my dad picked it up when he did, but has also stuck by me the whole way through.
Although I have said quite a few times, having him 100% in my corner is amazing – and it is – but to have him help me pick who coaches me and who stays around is also really important. He’s able to pick out smart people, and (knows) who’s right and wrong to be around. Obviously with what we’ve done this year, we’ve picked great people to help us. My dad doesn’t just do all my coaching, he’s basically my manager, he looks after all of my media stuff…
GK: He does so much.
KOC: It was just so nice. It’s normally me winning the awards and me winning the medals, and although I try to say it as much as I can that there’s so much help, it was just nice. He was buzzing with himself! He kept trying to act all chill.
GK: Nonchalant!
KOC: Yeah, but he was buzzing. It’s rare that coaches in Ireland get such big recognition and it was lovely that World Athletics recognised him so highly. I think my dad doesn’t realise sometimes how good he actually is at what he does. He’s an incredible organiser, the way that he structures everything and is able to make the team work, I couldn’t do it myself, I actually need him to do it and he’s great at it.
I was delighted for him to win something like that, that doesn’t happen every day. I think last year it was Keely Hodgkinson’s coach, Trevor Painter, who is a huge name and a big coach in the athletics world, so for my dad to win it after him… he was the one that actually told me that, he looked it up!
GK: He’s the first Irish coach in like 40 years, and the other one was living somewhere else, training someone else. First ever Irish coach of an Irish athlete to win that award, like.
KOC: It was lovely for him to get that recognition.
ED: What was the first meeting with Michael like, Georgie?
GK: He’s a big football man, so it was alright! A big Dundalk fan at the time so we were grand. I was nervous, like.
KOC: He was so nervous when they first met. He had big sweat patches under his armpits!
GK: Did I? Ah, I’m a sweaty person anyway. But I handled it well. Me and Michael get on good.
KOC: You get on really well with my whole family. My brother and sister love him, you get on really well with both of them.
GK: And your mum, and Valerie!
KOC: And my mam and my dad. You get on with everyone.
The transcript was lightly edited for length and clarity
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Interview