By Cathal Dennehy,Irishexaminer.com

Copyright irishexaminer

Out front and firmly on track for gold is US star Anna Hall with 4154 points, while reigning world champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson is just behind O’Connor in third with 3893. Olympic champion Nafi Thiam of Belgium is sixth with 3818 while Dutch athlete Sofie Dokter is fourth with 3890. Barring disaster, Hall has a lock on gold, but silver and bronze should be contested between O’Connor, Dokter, Thiam and Johnson-Thompson.

That scrap for the minor medals will unfold in the 800m at 1.11pm Irish time – not one to be missed.

For O’Connor, performing as she did was largely down to compartmentalising the scale of this event, blocking out the magnitude of her potential achievement and relishing the process. “If I’m being honest, I just came to this championships and I wanted to have fun. I’ve already had the year from dreams and I’ve really been trying to actually be present in the moment – in what I’m doing.”

What she was doing on both track and field was magnificent, the 24-year-old coming of age on the sport’s big stage and producing lifetime bests when many more richly accomplished rivals found themselves unable to reproduce theirs.

“I didn’t know I was second and that’s great, but we’ve still got a long way to go,” she said. “I’ll come out tomorrow, try to PB in the long jump, try to PB in the javelin and try to PB in the eight [hundred]. That’s really what my aims are.” She is on track to smash her Irish heptathlon record of 6487 points and looks likely to challenge 6700 points.

In her opening event, the 100m hurdles, she clocked 13.44 to smash her previous best of 13.57. In the high jump, she soared over 1.86m, adding 2cm to her PB, while in the shot put she launched a best of 14.37m – not far off her PB of 14.64m. O’Connor closed her night with another breakthrough in the 200m, clocking 24.07 to obliterate her previous PB of 24.33.

“The hurdles was one where I’ve known I’ve had a good PB in me for a long time,” she said. “Sometimes I’m on the line and I’m like, ‘I’ll just get through this rather than attacking it,’ and Sarah Lavin gave me some really good advice ahead of that. She’d be proud of me. I’ve been up and down with that shot put in training so to throw close to my PB was very, very good. I knew a 1.86m was there [in the high jump] and maybe higher and it’s just a case of believing in yourself and doing it.”

O’Connor has already bagged three medals this year: pentathlon bronze at the European Indoors, silver at the World Indoors and heptathlon gold at the World University Games. Those experiences will be valuable as she heads down the stretch of this.

“This whole competition, those medals made me a lot calmer,” she said. “I’ve done what I wanted to do this year, and if I’m being genuinely honest I just wanted to come out and enjoy the competition. I compete my best when I’m chilled out and competing against myself rather than the other girls.”

Saturday could well prove a historic day for Irish athletics, with Cian McPhillips also a live contender for a medal in the 800m final which takes place at 2.22pm Irish time.

Meanwhile, there was no joy for the Irish trio in the men’s 5000m heats who were all seeking a top-eight finish to advance. Brian Fay was 17th in 13:31.12, Darragh McElhinney was 10th in the second heat in 13:42.56 with Andrew Coscoran 19th in 13:56.95.

“I’m disappointed, but I ran as well as I could,” said McElhinney, who was just half a second short of qualifying. “I think tactically it was close to spot on. I had good legs in the last mile and to be so close is disappointing. But the top is a lot closer than it has been ever before. I’m coming away from this more motivated than ever. I have a bit of faith in myself.”

Coscoran struggled to change gears with the leaders in the final kilometre and said it was “just too much work to do on tired legs” following his 1500m exertions. Fay said he felt “like a broken record” explaining why he’d come up short again but believed a season spent chasing qualification caught up with him. “I’m just going to keep showing up and trying my best and maybe explore the possibility of trying a different event,” he said.

World Athletics Championships, Tokyo – Live, RTÉ Two, 11am; BBC Two, 10.30am

Irish in action, Saturday (all times Irish)

3.35am: Kate O’Connor, heptathlon long jump

11am: Kate O’Connor, heptathlon javelin

12.11pm: Women’s 4x400m relay heats

1.11pm: Kate O’Connor, heptathlon 800m

2.22pm: Cian McPhillips, men’s 800m final