Ireland's Kate O'Connor secured gold in the heptathlon at the European Championships in Birmingham. The Newry-born 25-year-old entered the final event with a 51-point lead on nearest challenger, Emma Oosterwegel of the Netherlands.

O'Connor needed to get to within 3.4 seconds of Oosterwegel in the 800m to seal overall victory and did just that with the Dutch woman winning the race in 2:10.87, but O'Connor — in third behind Sveva Gerevini of Italy — was within a second in 2:11.74.

It meant that O'Connor came top with 6751 points, with Oosterwegel taking silver on 6713 and Netherlands' Sofie Dokter claiming bronze on 6664. This success builds on the gold O'Connor won at the Commonwealth Games for Northern Ireland in July.