FEW can appreciate how quickly time flies more than Michaela Walsh.
It feels like only yesterday that she was the bright new thing on the scene, joining the growing hordes in Katie Taylor’s slipstream as women’s boxing moved from strength to strength.
Now, though, heading into a second consecutive Olympic Games, the west Belfast woman is among the senior heads on the team working towards the opening bell in Paris this weekend.
And while the likes of Jude Gallagher, Dean Clancy, Jack Marley and Daina Moorehouse all represent the future of Irish boxing - and hopefully the here and now across the coming weeks - Walsh and Olympic gold medallist Kellie Harrington are those who have seen and done it all.
Now 31, this could well be her last crack at an Olympic Games. But those kind of thoughts never cross her mind.
After the emotion of Commonwealth Games final defeat to Nicola Adams 10 years ago, then again to Skye Nicholson four years later when ‘Gold Medals Only’ was the motto for her and younger brother Aidan, Walsh no longer wears the burden of personal expectation as heavily.
Earlier this year she claimed a record-breaking 11th Irish elite title, there isn’t a major international competition she hasn’t competed at, while Commonwealth Games gold at last came her way in Birmingham two years ago.
Walsh’s Tokyo campaign ended in a split decision defeat to eventual bronze medallist Irma Testa three years ago – had that razor tight call gone her way, who knows where she might have ended up?
Yet her journey in the Far East has never felt like failure, nothing close to it, as her focus instead turned to Aidan and his path to the podium – with another prize already waiting back home.
“I was lucky,” she smiles.
“I know I didn’t win a medal but it nearly felt like I did through Aidan; I wanted him to win a medal more than myself.
“My niece was born the day we went out to Toyko, so I was in aunty mode straight away. My sister was nearly kicking me out of the house! I was lucky in those few weeks to spend time with her, then me and my partner went on holiday.
“Because of that, boxing was away and I had that to look forward to. That’s key when you come back from stuff. In a three or four year cycle, everything is about the Olympic Games and then when it’s over, it’s ‘what do you do now?’
“Having my niece was really important because you’re not a boxer to her, you’re not an athlete to her – you’re an aunty and win, lose, or draw you are the same person. Seeing her happy brings me so much joy and I really love that part of my life.”
It has been a different kind of experience this time around.
Three years ago both siblings secured their Tokyo places just a month before the Games got under way, whereas it is over 12 months since Michaela qualified for Paris.
At that point, it looked like she would be flying solo as mental health issues saw Aidan step away from the sport – only to make a dramatic late return before sealing his spot at last month’s final World qualifier in Bangkok.
“If you said to me a year ago that Aidan would be qualified when he was sitting in his caravan with a tin of Coke…
“It’s been mad to have a year - it was good in a way, you got to work on some of your weaknesses, trying to develop things to get better at. Obviously when you go to competition you work on what you’re good at, everything you’re strong at, so being able to work on those weaknesses a year out was good.
“When you’re pushing yourself to go last year, and you still have 300 odd days, that was tough as well. And obviously the other group, they were nearly like a different group training because we were in different places.
“To have the whole team back together now, there’s a real buzz, a real fire since they came back. It’s great that we’re all united again.”
And to have Aidan as part of it is an unexpected bonus.
As one of his closest confidantes, Michaela knew exactly how much her younger brother had been struggling at times. Indeed, after retiring from boxing, Aidan had started coaching his sister leading up to last year’s Irish elite championships.
“It was tough because we started boxing together, but I fully supported him.
“I was still phoning him up for advice, and for the elites last year he was doing a lot of the coaching for me – he was my pad man. He was always there for me and always there with me.
“Obviously going to the Olympics is still going to the Olympics, but it’s not going to be the same without him with me; it was going to feel like something was missing.”
At no point did Michaela try and persuade Aidan to return – though she couldn’t have been more proud watching on as he navigated that final qualifier, leaving the siblings to look ahead to another amazing experience together.
“One hundred per cent - it’s big for him. Even the retirement for him was a big choice.
“Going to Bangkok, it wasn’t really about qualifying. Yes, that’s the goal. Even to be there was him winning, getting back into a good place again. Obviously to qualify was so special.
“I know the people who’ve worked with Aidan to get him back, to get him feeling good, to make him feel himself again. It’s easy for me because of course I wanted him to continue boxing, but at the end of the day, he’s my brother and he’s my brother above everything else.
“His happiness means more to me than him going to the Olympic Games or him achieving an Olympic medal. I just want him to be happy within himself and within life, so that was his choice to make.
“Whatever choice he was to make, I was supporting him the whole way, so I wasn’t pushing him. It would be wrong and selfish of me to do that.”
