Gavin Cooney reports from Paris North Arena

KELLIE HARRINGTON COULDN’T stop grinning from the moment of the final bell, and once the result was confirmed as going her way, she sank to the canvas and worked through a few other emotions too. 

She beat the canvas in delight and then tore giddily about the place, hugging the beaten Beatriz Ferreira, embracing the Irish corner and soaking in the crowd’s acclaims before she eventually waltzed away in the general direction of another Olympic final. 

Harrington beat Ferreira in her last Olympic final, and she is now the first Irish boxer ever to make successive finals. And if she beats China’s Wenlu Yang on Tuesday night at Roland-Garros, Kellie Harrington will become the first Irish athlete to successfully defend an Olympic title since, er, Friday. (Okay, only the second to do it since 1932. The rowers had the benefit of a shorter schedule.) 

Initially, Harrington cut a tense figure at the start of these Games. Yes, she was in her state of extreme focus, but in interviews she also appeared on edge, as if she was ultra-conscious of what she might say and how it might be interpreted. But the longer the Games have gone on and the more she has fought, the more at ease she has appeared. 

Watching her pick her way through this competition has been an utter joy, but nobody has enjoyed it more than Kellie Harrington. 

“I’m absolutely loving it”, she told the media after her victory. “If you saw me in the village though, you’d have to remind my face of that, that’s the only thing.

“But I am enjoying it. To be honest, it’s a very, very lonely sport. It is lonely, a lot of the time I don’t cross the building only to go down to the food hall and then back to the room or else down to the physio, that’s it.

“So you can imagine three weeks of that, like, it gets quite lonely. And then when I come out here, I’m actually in the ring and I’m happy because when I get into that ring I’m allowed to be the craziest version of myself.

“It’s unbelievable, It’s the best feeling ever because nobody is judging me. Well, maybe they are, I don’t know!

“But I just love that feeling and as much as I say I’m going to be retired, I don’t know what I’m going to do because that feeling will be gone.” 

‘It’s difficult to divorce those comments from the fallout to her interview with Off the Ball last year, in which Harrington would not answer questions about her stance on immigration. The subsequent scrutiny was so intense that Harrington withdrew from public view for a while, saying she did some counselling sessions having gone to a “dark place.” 

Regardless of your views on the rights and wrongs of her views on one of the most divisive issue of our times, anyone with an ounce of empathy can acknowledge the difficulty of being at the bottom of a pile-on. 

But now Harrington back doing what she does best. And on Saturday night she once again did it better than Beatriz Ferreira, putting on another masterclass to take a 4-1 split decision. Harrington won the first round but Ferreira – who has turned professional since Tokyo – came out furiously in the second, doing enough to take the round. Zaur Antia stressed to Harrington that she had to return to the strength of her jab, and so she utterly dominated the final round. 

Ferreira must truly be sick of the sight of Harrington at this point. And yet familiarity with Harrington doesn’t even lend any kind of advantage. Such is Harrington’s exceptional skill, she can switch between orthodox and southpaw with the ease the rest of us flick through our photos. Her talents are so broad it’s impossible to prepare for what to face, or at least plot a game-plan that Harrington and Antia won’t be able to pick apart within minutes.

Antia has the vision to pick the right route among the many on the map to victory, and Kellie has the stuff to navigate it. 

“I felt very much in control”, said Harrington. “She’s a fantastic opponent. She’s class, like. She’s been beaten twice since Tokyo, once straight afterwards in the world military championships or something. I felt like the underdog in there.

“I genuinely feel confident in the coaches and what they’re telling me to do. Zaur has been with me since day one since I started my international journey. All the coaches are great but when me and Zaur work together, it works.” 

Harrington was informed during her chat with the media that this was the 100th victory of her career, and she quickly shot back that it was also the centenary of Ireland’s first Olympic Games, which were also in Paris.

Her final will take place at the main stadium at Roland-Garros, though that won’t mean much to Harrington.

“To be quite honest, I have no idea what it is or anything like that”, she said. “I am not a tennis fan. To me it is just another arena and another opponent and whatever will be will be. I just want to be happy and stay happy.” 

With boxing still not on the programme at the 2028 Games and this week of controversy further undermining its case to be salvaged at late notice, as it stands, Kellie Harrington’s final on Tuesday night will be Ireland’s final Olympic boxing fight.

That’s a scary prospect, but if there has to be a final bout, then there is some rare boxing justice in the fact it will be edified by the great Kellie Harrington.