A historic gold medal and a guaranteed place at the Olympics in Rio next year meant that Arthur Lanigan O'Keefe had a lot to be happy about yesterday. 

His incredible performance at the European Modern Pentathlon Championships means that his place at the Olympics is guaranteed, but also that he now has that experience of winning a medal and winning a competition behind him, something that he hopes will come in useful as he prepares for Rio. 

Speaking to Off The Ball this morning, O'Keeffe said that "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".

O'Keeffe added that having already competed in London, and now with this win, things were coming together for him at the right time: "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".

You can listen to the full interview below:

You can get a look at a typical day in Arthur's hectic training schedule here and keep up with his journey to Rio next year on Newstalk.com