'I have a target on my back and they're getting more dirty as well'

Olympic gold medal winner Kellie Harrington at the announcement of Permanent TSB as the title sponsor for both the Irish Olympic and Irish Paralympic teams at the Paris 2024 Games 

Kellie Harrington always insisted that the Olympics wouldn’t change her. She said as much time and again through the rounds of the lightweight division at the historic Ryōgoku Kokugikan sumo hall in the Tokyo district of Yokoami last year. And she doubled down on it after climbing the podium.

What she couldn’t prevent, what she could have never foreseen, was how her gold medal would change everyone else. Of all the surreal moments since her return from Japan, digesting the fanboy and fangirl reactions of people who knew her long before she was KELLIE HARRINGTON has been right up there.