IF sporting immortality was already achieved when she sank to her knees in Tokyo, Kellie Harrington catapulted herself into a different stratosphere in Paris on Tuesday night.
Winning one Olympic gold medal is beyond the wildest dreams of almost every boxer who ever laces up gloves, with Floyd Mayweather jr, Miguel Cotto and Gennady Golovkin just some of the modern-day greats who fell before the finish line.
But two? Now that’s just greedy.
Yet since the competition started in the French capital, Harrington looked a cut above. At 34, her movement was too much for younger opponents, her IQ between the ropes unmatched. And she had fun doing it.
“The last one [in Tokyo] was for everybody else.
“We were going through a pandemic and everybody needed something to give them a lift and I think, at that time, to get people to smile about something.
“That’s what the last one was for, and this one…when you reach a mountain, find a bigger mountain and that’s what I done and it wasn’t easy go climb that mountain… and having the crowd out there. Oh my God!
“The Irish are just great… I never expected anything like that. I am never ever going to forget this. Now I understand what professional boxing is like with having a crowd like that behind you when you’re walking out. That was amazing and they genuinely gave me a lift.
“It’s been three years of madness. It’s been hard so I decided that it’s for me. I’m doing it for me and me alone and that’s what it is. I’m just so happy and I’m so proud of myself and to be here, just to be doing what I’m doing.”
Having declared her intention to walk away from the international scene once this Olympics ended, whatever way it finished up, she revelled in knowing the finish line was in sight.
Rarely do we see a sportsperson - least of all a boxer - bow out at the peak of their powers. The temptation is all too often to hang on. One more go. Still got it.
But, at the home of French tennis, Harrington served up another performance full of guile and cunning to outwit China’s Wenlu Yang. The Champagne was already on ice as hundreds of Irish fans made their way to the Philippe Chatrier court, the closed roof only adding to the most clammy and close of expectant evenings.
Oddly for an occasion of such enormity, there were no nerves. There were no lingering concerns that it might not go Harrington’s way. Fate is an ideal far removed from the blood and thunder of the boxing ring, but this one felt pre-ordained.
It was her tournament, and her night.
Before leaving the sanctity of the changing room in Tokyo, she had written messages on the walls. Words that empowered her. Gave her strength.
This time, this final time, it was people and memories fuelling her drive for gold.
“Walls come down and they have to get skimmed and all that. Instead, I had all my photographs and I put them up with Blu-Tack.
“[Wife] Mandy gives me a little package and it has loads of little photographs in it of people that I love, and good memories that I’ve had, and I take them out and then she leaves me a really positive card.
“I read that, and then I put them all on the wall, because she also puts Blu-Tack in the gift. Then I have Post-Its and every day I’ll write something on it like ‘I know I can’, and I’ll stick it on the wall. ‘Professional’, stick it on the wall. ‘Smile’ is on the wall. ‘Happiness’.
“And before I leave this week. I’ll say I have about 20 of them on the wall now. I’ll read them all and I say them out loud.”
They served their purpose, Harrington boxing beautifully to claim the first few rounds, allowing her to ease across the line despite a decent finish from number one seed Yang.
Considering the Dubliner spent so much of her early days in Katie Taylor’s slipstream, it makes you wonder just what else what she might have achieved had such a considerable roadblock not been placed in her way.
But none of that matters now because here she sits, alongside Pat O’Callaghan, Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy as Ireland’s greatest Olympian. In boxing terms, she joins Nicola Adams and Claressa Shields as the only two-time champions.
And, irrespective of discipline, the best kind of example has now been set for the rest to follow.
“Thank you for everything Kellie,” tweeted fellow Paris gold medallist Rhys McClenaghan, “you showed it was possible, now you’ve shown it’s possible to do it twice.
“Message received.”
“After Tokyo, I was retired,” she added, “that’s what the plan was.
“But then it was like, it’s only an extra three years. That’s what people were saying and I was like, when you think of it that way, it kinda does fly in.
“But there are no more mountains, that’s it. I’m done now, like. The next chapter is going to be my life chapter. It’s for me and Mandy now to do what we’re doing.
“Who knows what that’s going to be? But I can’t wait to just live my life, to not be looking at the scales every morning, and all boxers are the same: to be able to train the way we want to train, because everything is like ‘you can’t do that because you might get injured’, or ‘you can’t do that because you’ve training tomorrow, and if you do that you’ll be tired tomorrow and you won’t have anything to be able to spar’.
“I want to just do whatever type of training I want to do, stuff like that. So no more mountains.”
The likes of former two-time world champion Carl Frampton and Armagh’s All-Ireland winning manager, Kieran McGeeney, were among those watching from the wings when Harrington carved out another huge chunk of history.
And she led the cavalcade of emotions from her safe space on the canvas, bawling one minute, leaping around the ring the next. Ringside doctors wanted to give her a check over, Paris 2024 officials attempted to gently usher Harrington towards the television cameras, but following protocol was not on her radar. Not tonight.
Every second, instead, was being savoured. She battled to hold back the tears as the Irish tricolour went up during the medal ceremony, then led 150 fans inside the arena in a rendition of ‘Grace’ before eventually being dragged to fulfil media commitments.
Yet she was far from done yet. Outside, on her way across the concourse, Harrington was intercepted again. Just as footage began to emerge of dad Christy and mum Yvonne leading a sing-song back home in Portland Row, so their superstar daughter eyes closed her eyes once more, singing into the Paris night, wrapped up in a green embrace.
Zaur Antia looked on with pride; these are the moments he lives for too.
The Georgian had his arm around the left shoulder of fellow coach James Doyle throughout all three rounds, throwing every punch, slipping every shot, unwittingly dragging Doyle back and forward as the drama was lived and breathed in full.
And when the last bell sounded, Antia was first in the ring, linking arms and leading the celebrations.
“Zaur, he knows me,” said Harrington.
“All the coaches, they all know me outside of sport, and then they know me when I get to the gym. There are two different people - I’m different in the gym.
“If you walk into the gym when I’m in the middle of a training session, I’ll give you the look of death. You’d be like ‘Jesus!’ You’d turn back around and walk out.
“Because I’m like ‘this my sacred place, get out’. They know me, and we have a special bond, myself and Zaur and Noel [Burke], and all the rest of the coaches.
“If you don’t believe in your coaches, then it’s not possible, you can’t do what you do. I’m also challenging coaches as well. If I feel like I need something, I’ll be the first to voice it and say ‘I need more sparring, I need to go here, I need to bring this person in’.
“I am kind of the creator of my own destiny in some kind of way - I’m always pushing the boundaries, and I’m always pushing the coaches as well.”
The last mile is never crowded. Now Kellie Harrington has walked it, and has reached its end.
Long after centre court had been vacated, into the early morning hours of Wednesday morning, a soft green light fell upon the now empty ring; the scene of such drama now totally serene.
There may be Irish championships in future, there may not. This chapter, though, is closed. But boxers, perhaps more than competitors from any other sport, can find the transition from monastic lifestyle to normality tough terrain to navigate.
Harrington has spoken about reaching this point for so long but, now that it is here, how can it ever be replaced? That “sacred space”, the place where she felt free from all outside pressures?
The cord is not being cut entirely. How could it be?
“It’s not going to be taken away, because they’re not getting rid of me. I’m just not going to be boxing, but they’re not getting rid of me. They might think they are, but they’re not; they’re not that lucky.
“I want to stay around for the team. I believe that I have some good values that I can add to the team. I want to stay there and I want to help.
“I don’t want to be a coach, because it’s extremely hard… the work our boxing coaches do, I am not kidding you, it’s just unbelievable. It’s 24/7, boxing, boxing, boxing.
“These are people who have families, and they are giving everything so that the athlete can accommodate their dreams and their desires.”
Kellie Harrington has lived hers to the full, and brought everybody along with her. No matter what the future may bring, we’ll always have Paris.
