Kellie Harrington: 'I haven’t got super powers or anything! I’m just a normal person'

BOXING CLEVER: Kellie Harrington basks in the glory of winning Olympic gold at the Kokugikan Arena yesterday. Picture: James Crombie/Inpho

“It's a great achievement for me to get to this position, but I’m more than just a boxer; I’m Kellie Harrington.”

The Dubliner’s sporting ascent has always been balanced by a reluctance to let it define her.

Harrington’s has always been a bigger purpose, her pride in Portland Row on par with any athletic aspirations.

And yet, few could blame her for revelling on summiting her Everest.

Only two others have scaled this particular peak, after all, Harrington rounding out Irish boxing’s golden trinity, alongside Katie Taylor and Michael Carruth.

Aidan Walsh’s brilliant bronze brings the country’s overall in-ring honour roll to 18, the woes of Rio — for now, at least — dispelled.

Indeed, boxing’s belated road to Tokyo proved a long one — Harrington’s own path has been longer still.

Mere weeks before misfortune befell her colleagues in Brazil, she had her first crowning moment, sealing silver at the 2016 World Championships. That her success occurred at a non-Olympic weight saw the feat sit somewhat off-Broadway, however, the eyes of the boxing world still set on South America.

Ireland’s squad infamously unravelled in all manner of means. Chief among the departed was champion emeritus Katie Taylor, her premature exit from those Rio games precipitating a switch to the paid ranks.

The Bray native’s dominance at 60kg, which by then had spanned a decade plus, was over.

And while Taylor’s medal medley had always been an international enterprise, the root of her monopoly began at home.

Domestically, it was ‘winner stays on’. Harrington knew that better than most. “You’re always going to lose faith when there’s someone else there (in front of you),” said Kellie of that lengthy holding pattern in the lightweight division.

“Even as I got older, people still weren’t taking me seriously in boxing. And there were only eyes on one female boxer in Ireland. As far as most people were concerned, there was only one. But there wasn’t, actually. There was a whole other load of female athletes coming through. But boxing shaped my life, and changed my life, and I kept training. Not with the aim of becoming a champion or anything, but because it was changing my life for the better.

“Eventually Katie went on to do her thing in the pros, and I’m here now. So it’s good. Everyone has their moment. She had her memorable time in the amateurs, now I have mine. I’m sure there’s someone behind me who’ll get theirs.”

Having assumed the then newly vacant 60kg berth, Harrington’s Tokyo tilt began in earnest.

Silver at the EU Games in 2017 was followed up with a European bronze a year later.

It was her golden World Championships of 2018 which would prove the most eye-catching staging post, though, defeat of recent Olympic foe Sudaporn Seesondee as much a vindication as a coronation.

“The feeling was indescribable. When I looked back, the coaches were jumping into each other’s arms! It’s those moments that get me, really. Medals are great, and yeah I’ve been world champion, but it’s more about everyone else around me who have made me a champion in life. I feel, because of all that, I’m winning in more than boxing, I’m winning every day!”

An injury-plagued 2019, coupled with the Covid-induced delays of 2020, served to somewhat slow Harrington’s progress in the ring.

Conversely, Harrington’s work at St Vincent’s in Fairview assumed sharper focus, her vibrant devotion to that vocation evermore acute in the throes of the pandemic.

“Every time I go in it’s a joy. They’re like family to me, honestly. They support me totally, but they tell me like it is as well! In normal days, I’d just bring people up their breakfast in the early part of the morning. I’d go for a run then on my break, get back and have a shower, and then it’s all about having a bit of craic on the ward for a while. And the stick does be flying around as well!

“Do you know what it is? I still don’t see myself as anything special. Because I’m not. I still do all the same things I always did. I haven’t got super powers or anything! I’m just a normal person.

“Sometimes people be like, ‘aw, world champion’, and that’s great — I love to hear the kind words — but I also love people being real and saying, ‘yeah you might be a world champion, but you still have to do this and that! You’re no better than anyone else!’ And too right, like. We’re all human.”

That same grounding has been central to her tale throughout this Olympic odyssey, her intrinsic affinity with Dublin 1 infusing her fighting purpose with further meaning.

Gone from school at 14, Kellie completed her Junior Certificate via Youthreach, its broader approach in the realm of arts and active pursuits more befitting her creative disposition.

Joining the army at 18, perhaps, was never likely to be the most natural fit in that regard. Although on the path toward a two-star private ranking in a matter of months, she eventually arrived at that same conclusion.

Studies in the field of sports leisure management ensued thereafter, yet her athletic goals continued to loom large.

Harrington had long since found solace in the ring, although those in boxing circles weren’t initially so hospitable. Her inability to source a club with the means — or willingness — to accommodate a would-be boxing rookie spoke to that.

Thankfully, nearby Corinthians BC eventually afforded Harrington her first break at 16. Within four years she had her maiden Irish senior elite title.

“For me, when I was younger, there wasn’t much in the way of sports targets” notes Harrington, now of St Mary’s BC.

“So to see boxing as an achievable goal for girls of a young age in Ireland now is great. I’m just one part of
that.

“Kids from the inner city have flourished down different routes, like acting and music, but for me, sport brings a great discipline. It gave me a great focus. When I first started, there was one club who just wouldn’t take me.

“They said: ‘We actually don’t take girls’. So that was knocked on the head. Eventually I got into another club in the area. But it was quite hard to get respect as a young female boxer.

“Some people really put the time in with me, but others were just dismissive — ‘girls shouldn’t box’ and all that. And I was like: ‘Who are you to say I can’t box?! I’d probably box the head off you!’

“I was in Cavan for my first fight, I was only in the club for about three months at that stage. When I got there, my opponent was pinging the head off me! Even when I landed shots on her I’d nearly be saying sorry to her after! It was a real ‘sorry for hitting you that hard. Now you don’t hit me that hard, won’t you not?’ I just hadn’t got a clue.

“I bawled my eyes out on the bus home. That was just the competitiveness in me, I just wanted to win. I was upset, embarrassed, that I lost my first fight. But I kept training to fight the same girl, thinking: “I’m gonna get her, I’m gonna get her.’ I must have trained for a year before we met again, on our club show. There were people from my area. So they were all watching, and it was great. I won, not well or anything, but clearly fair and square. So that was a big moment in my journey.”

And in Tokyo she reached her destination.