Bernard Dunne: 15 months of work for Kellie Harrington came to fruition in nine minutes

Kellie Harrington and Bernard Dunne celebrate with her gold medal. Picture: INPHO/James Crombie

Bernard Dunne joked last Friday about how, much as he loves Zaur Antia, he was looking forward to the day when the Georgian’s would no longer be the first face he saw every morning.

The Irish boxing team has been on-site in Japan since June 30, eating, breathing, and sleeping in the same confines day after day, night on night. One small bubble within the larger Olympic version.

Little did Dunne know that he was about to see a lot more of his head coach who, after hours and hours of video analysis on Kellie Harrington’s Olympic final opponent, had something of a eureka moment so startling that social norms went out the window.

“I knew we were ready,” said Dunne of yesterday’s lightweight final.

“Zaur came into my room two nights ago, he came running in his undergear, and he said: ‘We got it, this is the plan, this is the plan’, because we had been watching video (of Beatriz Ferreira) but we got another video.

“It was a Korean opponent, there were those little bits in it that we have taken and Kellie just implemented the tactical plan perfectly. The best thing Kellie has shown here is her focus and her concentration and her ability, regardless of what the pressure is, to still perform. That last round was just… To be able to perform under that pressure, it takes so much, and she was able to maintain her focus and that was the most impressive thing I saw from her.”

Mike Tyson had a great line about plans and punches to the face. Harrington took a few of those in a first round that left her on the back foot at the off but, somehow, only down on three of the five judges’ cards.

This wasn’t part of Antia’s plan. Boxers who lose the first round in an Olympic final rarely end up on top of the podium but 3-2 was nothing insurmountable and the Irish brains trust had factored in their opponent’s fearsome opening barrage.

For Dunne, who experienced the high of being a world champion in the professional ranks, Harrington’s performance and the reward earned for it was something else again.

He had to pause for a bit before trying to vocalise it.

“It is priceless. From the moment anybody takes up boxing the dream is to become an Olympian, firstly, then to become an Olympic medallist is amazing, but to become an Olympic gold medallist…

“My hairs are tingling on the back of my neck just thinking about what she has achieved. People see the nine minutes of work but the last 15 months has just been torture for us.”

Dunne turned his thoughts back to London in March of last year when boxing’s Olympic qualifier was halted mid-session. The first inkling of just how big the Covid threat could be was starting to dawn and this was merely among the first of many sporting events that would end up in the can or cold storage as the world took pause and shelter.

The uncertainty flushed through to this very summer. Go back just a few weeks and there were still media reports signalling doubts over whether they would take place. For athletes and coaches it must have been disconcerting. Yet another doubt when all they craved was certainty.

But Irish boxing faces other issues. The high-performance unit has excelled for years but it has done so while attached to a governing body which is no stranger to internal strife and bad blood.

That this outside noise has never filtered through to the boxers in sufficient volume is an achievement in itself.

Ireland had seven boxers in the ring here, their joint-highest ever, with Aidan Walsh’s bronze adding to Harrington’s gold.

“My job is to support this team as best I can and focus on the team,” said Dunne. “There is always going to be noise, there is always going to be people who don’t agree with what you do and that is part of life.

“I can accept that and deal with that and I have big enough shoulders to take it on.

“Our focus has always been to get the best out of the best and you see from what has been achieved here that we managed it.”