{"id":422637,"date":"2026-01-19T05:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T05:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/422637\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T05:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T05:26:09","slug":"harrington-non-committal-on-future-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/422637\/","title":{"rendered":"Harrington non-committal on future plans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kellie Harrington wouldn’t be drawn on whether she will fight again after claiming the 60kg title at the National Championships<\/a> in Dublin on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Harrington, a two-time Olympic gold medallist, came out of retirement to compete in this competition. She followed up last week’s win over Zara Breslin with her second consecutive 5-0 triumph, this time over the defending champion Kellie McLoughlin, to confirm a 12th Elite national title.<\/p>\n

There are European Championships coming up in the summer, and Harrington spoke to RT\u00c9’s Sunday Sport about how she prefers to box outside Ireland.<\/p>\n

“It’s been a tough week, I’m not going to lie, because sometimes it’s actually easier to box in a different country when you don’t know anybody who’s outside the ring,” she said.<\/p>\n

“You know that it doesn’t really matter how you go [abroad]. When you’re stepping in here you’re really under the spotlight.<\/p>\n

“There’s people want to see you do well, there’s people want to see you getting beaten, there’s people who want to see the underdog coming out on top.<\/p>\n

“Today I felt like the underdog. I love that feeling of feeling like the underdog.”<\/p>\n

Harrington’s return last week marked her first competitive venture into the ring since she claimed her second Olympic gold in Paris.<\/p>\n

“I actually never realised how disciplined I was until I took that break and I had to start over again and then you’re back to the drawing board of doing what you always did.<\/p>\n

“But you didn’t realise how hard it was because you were so used to doing it. So I have a new appreciation of myself and of the hard work that I put in now.”<\/p>\n

The journey back into the ring was a surprise but having claimed the national title in such impressive fashion, interest will naturally turn to what Harrington’s future plans are.<\/p>\n

“There’s no temptation that this is the end,” she replied when asked if we’d see her again.<\/p>\n

“I’m just happy to be here and to be competing at this level and mixing it with the young guns.<\/p>\n

“Having my coach in my corner and being able to listen to him and do what he tells me to do – maybe a little bit slower on the reactions – but trying to do what he tells me to do.<\/p>\n

“That’s where I feel happy.”<\/p>\n

Pushed on whether a trip to the European Championships in the summer could be on the cards, she added: “I’m not going to say it is and I’m not going to say it isn’t. I’m just going with the flow, I’m just doing me and that’s it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kellie Harrington wouldn’t be drawn on whether she will fight again after claiming the 60kg title at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-422637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}