Kellie Harrington: I got back to normality after winning Olympic gold, I don't have superpowers!
Kellie Harrington: I was training Monday to Friday and then in to work on Saturday and Sunday, then back to training Monday to Friday. Picture: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile
“You know something, at the end of the day, people will forget what you’ve done, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel,” says Kellie Harrington, with that big, warm smile which has come to define her.
Looking back on a year in which she won an Olympic gold medal for boxing, she says she loves meeting new people and seeing their delight as they are transported back to that August day.
“You know, if my hard graft over the last five years has given our little nation something to grasp in these horrible dark times, then I’m really, really, proud of it.”
We’re chatting by Zoom, and it soon becomes apparent that the Olympian boxer is exactly who every interview and Late Late Toy Show appearance would suggest she is, a funny, friendly, and thoroughly decent young woman who has always remained true to herself.
When I ask if it’s been a jarring experience to reach the heights of Olympic gold and then to come back to real life, she says that is the one question she gets asked more than any other.
“Like, it’s gas, because I don’t know what people expect me to say, or what people think a person in my position will be like after winning an Olympic gold medal, but I just came back and went straight back in to work and just got back to normality.
“Really, you know, I don’t need my life to change, I’m really happy with it,” she says. “You know, you only have one life to live, so live the way you want to live, and that’s the way I am living, and I really don’t know what people expect, because everyone is kind of like, wow, I can’t believe you’re so normal like. You know, like, I don’t have superpowers!”
She laughs when I say a lot of people would disagree with that claim. I ask about her job in St Vincent’s Psychiatric Hospital in Fairview, where she works part-time as a cleaner. She says she returned to work immediately after the Olympics and continued to train for the World Championships, which were subsequently cancelled.
“I was training Monday to Friday and then in to work on Saturday and Sunday, then back to training Monday to Friday. And then I’d have that weekend off, and that was the circle and it just got too much. I wasn’t having enough rest and recovery and I got run down, so the ladies in the job, they stepped in and started to cover my shift for me again, every second weekend, and to be very honest with you, if they didn’t cover the shifts, then I wouldn’t have a job.
“I’m very, very, thankful to them and I don’t know how I could ever repay them, but they’re the unsung heroes who have let me, throughout the last few years, train to try and be an Olympian and then to go on and get a medal in the Olympics and become an Olympic champion.”
She says her job is what keeps her grounded, and she sees it as her break away from training.
“That’s my normality. That’s what I like to do. And those ladies have allowed me to keep that job because they’ve been covering my ass while I’ve been away. And if they didn’t do that, then I wouldn’t have a job and I don’t know what I would do.
She says she loves the feeling of normality and the connection with her colleagues and friends at work.
“When I’m in there, I have a job to do. I’m a cleaner. I clean. But I also feel like I’m an actor because I’m not acting like an Olympian or a sportsperson. I feel like someone from a stage school nearly, going in and having the craic and singing a few songs and cracking a few jokes and you know, just doing something different and I love it. I absolutely love it. I’d love to have a job of just providing entertainment within the hospital!”
I ask about one particularly high-profile Kellie Harrington supporter, a childhood favourite who tweeted their support during the Olympics, and she laughs with disbelief when I tell her that Paula Lambert and her best friend Bosco are big fans.
“Oh my God, I can’t believe it! Is that really Bosco? Like, I saw a couple of tweets, but I got so many tweets. I was just scrolling [through them] to be very honest with you. I was like, well, that’s not the real Bosco.”
It was. With the little boxing gloves and ‘Hakuna Matata’.
“Wow. Wow. I love Bosco.”
Kellie has spoken before about some days staying in her PJs and eating chocolates and just having a duvet day. Is that something she would recommend to everyone?
“At the end of the day, we’re all human. And we all do have down days, dark days, days where we just want to shut ourselves away from the world and get into our PJs. Well, I do anyways.
"There’ll be a day where I’d have me breakfast in me pyjamas, and me dinner in me pyjamas, and in between that I’d have a load of cakes and biscuits and, you know, like, you just need those days. I do anyways. I do just be exhausted. And then after about a day of that, then I’m ready to have a shower and get back to life and just be normal. Again, like, I am only human.”
Looking back, she says Covid and the postponement of the Olympics made everything that bit more difficult, adding an extra year of training and necessitating her being away from home for long stretches of time.
That must have been hard for her, I suggest, being away from her partner of 12 years, Mandy Loughlin, and their beloved dogs Nidge and Macy, and being away from family and friends.
“Yeah, it was really tough. But the tough part about it is the simple things that you miss out on. You know, the really, really simple things like getting into your pyjamas and laying on the couch and having a chat with the people who are closest to you in person. You know, like not being able to just get up and walk down to your local shop, or see your dogs and just to have all of that kind of support.”
Kellie recently became a brand ambassador for Spar, a three-year deal which she says is “a massive big deal” for her, and, citing Spar’s 400-plus independent retailers, mostly family-run, her enthusiasm for the idea of the local shop being the heart of a community seems to go beyond contractual obligations.
“We have a Spar shop on the corner at the Five Lamps, and the people who work in there, they’re absolutely brilliant,” she says.
“What’s great is everybody from around the community knows the people who work there, and what I find even more brilliant is that the people who work in there know everybody from around the community.”
She was the face of Spar’s Christmas community fund, where the public could nominate a coach or mentor from a community or club, from arts to sports, and ten separate clubs or groups would be awarded €1,000 each.
“When I was growing up, if I had had the opportunity to enter my coach into a competition like this to win €1,000 for our club, it would have been fantastic. €1,000 goes a long way in in a club environment, especially in voluntary clubs.”
She isn’t a judge in the awards, and jokingly adds that there’s no point in people messaging her to put in a good word on their clubs’ behalf.
As we finish our interview, Kellie Harrington asks for a favour.
“Tell Bosco I said ‘Whaddup’,” she grins. I’ll be on the phone to Bosco as soon as the Zoom ends.
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