
Pic Alex Whitehead, swpix.com. Commonwealth Games Optus Aquatics Centre, Gold Coast, Australia. Anna Hopkin, Freya Anderson, Eleanor Faulkner and Siobhan Marie O’connor of England win bronze in the 4x100m relay.
Football. Rugby. Any sport really. Olympic 200m individual medley silver medallist Siobhan O’Connor loves them all. But it is when she is talking about boxing that the 22-year-old with the creaking medal cabinet lights up.
Ever since she was a young child sport has been a constant thread in O’Connor’s life.
Like many children, O’Connor was introduced to a host of activities but she was different, excelling in the pool to become one of the few to breathe the rarefied air of Olympic success.
By the age of 20, the Bath-based athlete had graced Olympic, world, European and Commonwealth podiums, not only surviving but thriving on the most brutal, raw, exposing stage of all. One where millimetres can define perceived success and failure.
While the spotlight at the top can be unremitting, sport is a place of excitement and thrills for O’Connor.
“I think sport is such an amazing thing,” she says. “Not just at an elite level but across all levels, at participation level, I think it enriches people’s lives.
“I just love watching it. When you go to a massive event – a fight or a massive football or rugby game – the atmosphere, I just love it.”
A fight?
“I like a good fight night: it’s pretty spectacular,” she adds. “The last one I went to was Antony Joshua against Dominic Breazeale in 2016. It was really cool and a great undercard – (Chris) Eubank Jr was fighting and (George) Groves was fighting. I watch most of it on telly now because it is so hard to get tickets for these things.”
O’Connor knows what it takes to succeed in the gladiatorial arena that is elite sport, the time spent relentlessly working on all the different components with the goal of putting them all together in top competition.
The years of dedication, the physical and mental exhaustion, the dark places when the world isn’t looking.
Overcoming the disappointment of failing to qualify for the 2012 Olympics in her specialist event as a 16-year-old to force her way on to the team at the last minute.
Learning to live and train with ulcerative colitis, a bowel condition that at times has forced her out of the water.
Poised, quietly-spoken and eloquent, O’Connor clearly has the pitbull in her, one that saw her bear down on world champion Katinka Hosszu on the final length of the 200IM final at the Olympics in Rio in 2016, the Hungarian relieved to touch just 0.3seconds ahead as the Briton cut into her lead with every stroke.
So, what is it about boxing? Is it the potential danger? Putting their lives on the line?
“I think that is the thing,” she said. “I think it is probably the fact in boxing I think you have to be the fittest athlete.
“Swimming is gruelling and I don’t think it gets enough recognition of that. What they have to do is insane, they are phenomenal athletes.
“In swimming it’s an endurance sport but I guess it is up to you, you are in complete control of your race, your lane and if you don’t put the hours in in training you will just have a bad performance.
“But boxers they train so hard and know if they don’t put the hours in and prepare the best they can they are going to get badly beat up.
“I am really interested in the psychology of it, I admire their work ethic and the sport so much.
“I think it’s the toughest sport. I’ve never done it but from what I know of boxers’ training regimes and stuff I’m pretty sure it’s gruelling, I take my hat off to them.
“It’s also really entertaining.”