Arthur Lanigan-O’Keeffe wrote his name into Irish sporting history on Saturday when he won gold at the European Modern Pentathlon Championships, a performance which marks him out as one of Ireland’s key medal hopes for the Olympic Games in Rio next year.
Never before had any Irish pentathlete won a European title in this multi-discipline event, yet Lanigan-O’Keeffe, the 23-year-old London Olympian, moved from seventh position, after the swimming discipline, into second place overall after recording 23 wins and 12 defeats from the fencing round.
Further success in the showjumping event and the run/shoot round saw him finish the competition 16 seconds ahead of France’s Valentin Prades, and Italy’s Riccardo de Luca.
“I knew it was all up to me and I had a really, really good chance, I knew once I had that lead in the combined event that no one would probably be able to catch me,” said Lanigan-O’Keeffe in an interview with Newstalk’s sports programme, Off the Ball, yesterday.
“The Olympics is just a whole different level. The pressure gives it a completely different feel. I feel like I’ve got a really big advantage on the younger athletes who didn’t compete in the last games. I’m not going to get frightened by the lights or all the crowd or anything, I know what I have to do.
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“Saturday’s victory basically means the world to me, our whole season has been focused on peaking at this one moment and we peaked at it so it gives me great confidence going into Rio. I’ve now qualified for the Olympics, I’m the European champion, it’s pretty much up there with the top days of my life. I am so delighted.”
Lanigan-O’Keeffe’s delight was not matched by Ireland’s athletes at the world championships in Beijing yesterday after both Mark English and Thomas Barr missed out on a place in the finals of their respective disciplines.
Barr finished fourth in his 400 metres hurdle semi-final, and 11th overall in the competition, a quarter of a second shy of the qualifying mark. English, meanwhile, finished fifth in his 800 metres semi-final, clocking a time of 1:45.55. Alex Wright was disqualified in the 20km walk.