Reaching the Paris Olympics in 2024 remains the primary goal for West Waterford athlete Kate Veale. The Ballinroad native cruised to her 7th National title on Sunday last (June 26th) in the her 5000 meters walk outclassing the field in a time of 23.31.12 at the National Stadium.
Speaking on last night's "On The Ball" programme, Kate said winning a title of such significance can never be underestimated; "It's always nice to get a national title and it's lovely just for the event itself, to be able to compete in Ireland, a lot of the races - I have to go abroad for so it's always lovely to get a national title, my 7th, one for the 5,000 metre walk and it's my 17th altogether so for as long as I can I want to keep going and try and see how many national titles I can get".
And Kate Veale (West Waterford) claims her 7th National Senior Womens 3000m walks Title, what an achievement 👏🥇
🥈Siobhan Doherty (Tir Chonaill)
🥉Ruth Monaghan (Sligo)#NationalSeniors #150thEdition pic.twitter.com/0rNbegg1jw— Athletics Ireland (@irishathletics) June 26, 2022
Kate says it's brilliant to get the rewards with the work that's going on behind the scenes to get ready for the big races; "With athletics and a lot of Sports, it's about consistency and every day doing the simple things over and over and eventually things start to click. I've had so many poor performances, and so many years of ups and downs but I really feel I'm on a right path now and it's exciting. Paris is only two years away and the work for that starts now".
Paris will host the next Olympics in 2024 and Kate told WLR Sport her aim is to be there competing on the world stage; "With injuries and with different things, I really feel I've unfinished business. The Olympics are the pinnacle and even though I've been to major Championships, I've not actually been to an Olympics, it definitely is a big motivating factor and a drive and you know the hunger is there so that's definitely the aim and the goal. As I said the work starts now and it's just enjoying the process really and every day showing up and putting in the work because that's what's going to get me there, it's going to be an exciting two years ahead".
There were wins for Thomas Barr and Kate Vealehttps://t.co/uxmeZ230BR
— WLR (@wlrfm) June 27, 2022
