Olympic bronze medallist Aidan Walsh 'at peace' with retirement after career of struggles outside the ring

During his boxing career, Aidan Walsh struggled with his mental health. He plans to do a Masters in sports psychology, and possibly a PhD, with the aim of helping fellow athletes. 

Aidan Walsh won a bronze medal for Ireland at the Toyko Olympics. Pic: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

Aidan Walsh has called time on a boxing career that delivered Olympic bronze in Tokyo, two Commonwealth Games medals and a host of conflicting emotions laid bare in a raw and honest interview on Monday.

Still only 28, the Belfast man had previously cut the cord on his time between the ropes for a 14-month spell before returning and qualifying for the Paris Games. He has no intention of doubling back now. Not this time.

Walsh’s last fight was actually with his club, in Portland, Oregon not long after last year’s Olympics. He has known for ages that this was it. If anything, he wishes the decision had been made and cemented in his mind years ago.

“I'm just at peace with it now. And not only for myself, but for other people. I was putting other people, a lot of other people who really cared for me and loved me and really supported me, through a lot as well due to my own suffering.” That suffering had been documented.

Mental health issues were a struggle throughout his career and he paid tribute to those who helped him through it all: his parents, his sister and fellow Olympian Michaela, his girlfriend, her family and others within sport.

Gary Longwell, the former Ireland rugby international and now performance skills coach at Sport Northern Ireland is one. Paul Gaffney, a clinical psychologist who works with Sport Ireland is another. Gaffney, in particular, was mentioned multiple times.

“Regardless of medal success or any type of achievement, it's the relationships that I've made that really mean the most and what I’ve actually really come to appreciate a lot more than the medals. When I talk about that, and when I share my stories and the relationships that I've gained, I get quite emotional because I've just felt really lucky in my career.” How bad were those struggles?

Walsh explained how he had basically retired a week before the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in 2022 where he went on to win gold. He told how he had phoned Michaela every day from Bangkok to say he couldn’t do it before qualifying for Paris.

Every tournament, he said, was a battle of the mind. Michaela lived them all.

“She didn't even want me coming back for Paris. She didn't even want me to go to Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, either. She didn't. Even before going to Bangkok and Milan for the qualifiers for Paris, she was always saying to me, ‘and you're sure this is what you want to do? Like, I think it's best for your own best interest to step away’.

“So she was somebody who always wanted me to step away just due to the struggles. She had to pick me up the floor a number of times before competitions. She's had to walk me out of training, out of the gyms with towels over my head, to make sure nobody seen me breaking down.

“She's been through a lot with me and I'm just glad that I've put it to bed for her as well.” His relationship with boxing is complex at best.

He grew up surrounded by the sport, through his dad and his sister and his community, but there was no enjoyment through most of his elite amateur career, certainly not when the medals produced more pressure.

He never watched boxing, not even the fight reviews that are part and parcel of the elite game, because of the anxiety they would induce. He plays down his own successes and style, crediting lucky draws or decisions rather than his own work.

Michaela, in his eyes, is the one who deserves the Olympic medal and if there was an avenue of joy in his own journey then it was being able to take it with her. It’s those relationships, not the medals, that he will cherish now.

Retirement will allow him to make up for the years when he neglected friendships and education. There are plans for marriage and a family, nights relaxing at the cinema, and he is well into a Masters in sports psychology and hopes to go on to a PhD.

Boxing will leave him with physical and psychological injuries but he’s not of a mind to leave it behind. There are no plans to go coaching. What he wants to do is to help athletes so that they don’t have to endure the same darkness he had.

For all his struggles, he genuinely feels “lucky” – that word again – and “blessed” even, to have been helped along the way by so many good people and the intention now is to do the same for the next generations of boxers.

“There's nothing more daunting or more terrifying than knowing that you have to walk a path alone. And I really mean that. My goal is to contribute, to help athletes to make sure that there's someone within that environment to support them, walk along with them.

“Not tell them how to get a better performance, or how to win medals, or how to achieve success, but that they actually feel psychologically safe. That's a big, big support of mine because I know how scary it is.”