Ah, Kellie Harrington, you’re worth your weight in gold. Game, set and match at Roland-Garros, the reward a second Olympic title, the composition of the medal she picked up for this slice of glory ensuring that a little piece of the Eiffel Tower will forever be in Portland Row. Unless she moves.
The stadium’s roll of honour already featured some glittering names in the world of women’s sport, among them Chris Evert, Steffi Graf, Justine Henin, Serena Williams and Iga Swiatek, but not one of them had the heads smacked off them on their way to their triumphs. Harrington’s name, then, should be hoisted above them all.
Pre-fight, Jacqui Hurley was wandering around outside the stadium, soon learning, with no little amusement, that most of the accents around her had a decidedly Dub hue to them. This nation’s ability to secure tickets for major sporting events would have us on top of any medal table.
Among them were two lads who have a decent enough record in the Gaelic footballing sphere, Kevin McManamon and Michael Darragh MacAuley. And just as Jacqui was about to pack up her mic and head inside, who should she meet but Armagh manager Kieran McGeeney, bedecked in his Ireland shirt, who confirmed that the county is still Riverdancing after an All-Ireland title and Daniel Wiffen’s double medal haul, all in the space of a handful of days.
Ciara Mageean: ‘I just felt numb. It wasn’t even sadness, it was just emptiness’
Cambridge Dictionary’s word of the year: Celebrity ‘manifesting’ influences 2024 choice
Sonia O’Sullivan: A jog down Olympic memory lane shows how far Irish athletes have come
Rachael ‘Raygun’ Gunn retires from competitive breaking after Olympic upset
But in the build-up, the biggest fear was that the RTÉ panel would jinx Harrington much like they did the Wiffen lad ahead of his 1,500m final, the nation left recoiling on their couches lest they suggest our girl was as good as gold even before she entered the ring.
Happily, they resisted any such fate-tempting, ish. “She’s had so many good challenges here, but she’s made it look so easy,” said Bernard Dunne, while Kenneth Egan reckoned “we’re going to see the best Kellie Harrington tonight.” That was a little too confident-ish, but they at least told us that Wenlu Yang was a bit good, as evidenced by her reaching the actual final. And Kenneth finished up with a word of warning: “I hope she doesn’t think she has the gold medal in her pocket, this is going to be a very tough fight for Kellie.”
Fight time. A long delay and the madness of an 11.20ish local start time – were the schedulers drunk? But oh my, how stunning did Roland-Garros look? Whoever came up with the idea of staging the boxing finals there, you can’t but doff yer chapeaux to them.
Harrington arrived, it was like Katie at London 2012 all over again, the place buzzing.
Round one. Do you spend the bulk of boxing bouts involving Irish persons behind a cushion? Same. So it was left largely to Hugh Cahill and Eric Donovan to let us know how it was going. A few excited shrieks early on from Eric, so that was good, but Hugh deflated us by saying it was quite even. Round over. Harrington 4-1 up with the judges! “Barring disaster, Kellie will have her hands on that gold medal again!” Hugh? Stop.
Round two. Some swings and misses, we heard from behind said cushion. “That was a fantastic punch,” Eric howled, so we assumed he was talking about Kellie. But: “That was a big punch from Yang!” Then “BEAUTIFUL PUNCH FROM KELLIE!” By now: stretched. Still up with the judges! Breeeeeeeathe.
Round three: “THREE MINUTES AWAY FROM A DOUBLE GOLD MEDAL,” Hugh hollered. Yang needed to send Harrington flying. Tummy in knots. A peek from behind the cushion revealed that Harrington knew what she was doing, which tends to be the thing with reigning Olympic champions. All over.
The verdict: We knew Harrington won, but it’s boxing, so ... we’ve been eyebrow-wiggling at how some of the sport’s judges, well, judge bouts since Methuselah was a nipper. So it wasn’t until Harrington’s arm was raised that we could breathe ... absolutely flippin’ glorious.
It hasn’t always been smooth sailing for Harrington since Tokyo, she’s endured her down days, in and out of the ring, and had her doubts about her ability to come back and do it all again – or even if she wanted to. So you’d be wondering if she used the same sports psychologist as Rob Heffernan mentioned on RTÉ earlier in the evening.
Speaking about sports people having to stave off negative feelings, the psychologist told Heffernan: “The only things that are comfortable rolling around in shite are pigs – and it’s the same with your thoughts, don’t fuel them!” Derval O’Rourke agreed, although “I wouldn’t have put it that way”.
In the end, it would appear, Harrington didn’t fuel the doubts, leaving the poop to the pigs.
A second Olympic gold medal. If the young one who had to spar with shadows in a neighbour’s shed, because she was told girls don’t box, was offered a pair of them back in the day, before women’s Olympic boxing was even a thing, you’d guess she might have said, “go on then”. We would too. Chapeaux off to you, Kellie Harrington. Legend.
