{"id":47212,"date":"2025-08-06T06:49:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T06:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/47212\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T06:49:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T06:49:10","slug":"a-year-on-harrington-makes-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/47212\/","title":{"rendered":"A year on: Harrington makes History"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Photo by David Fitzgerald\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n

Its a year to the day since Kellie Harrington made Irish Olympic history, by becoming the first Team Ireland boxer in 100 years to successfully defend her title.<\/p>\n

Kellie, the Tokyo 2020 lightweight champion, entered the iconic Roland Garros Arena on August 6th, 2024, cloaked in the sound of her own name echoing of the stadium walls, as most of the 15,000 strong crowd became Irish for 12 incredible minutes \u2013 12 minutes in which the first boxing Olympic champion of the Paris Games would be crowned.<\/p>\n

The Dubliner, from Portland Row and of St. Mary\u2019s Boxing Club, Tallaght, boxed out of the blue corner when she faced China\u2019s Wenlu Yang 4-1 for amateur boxing\u2019s greatest prize. She got to the final have left a swathe of stylish, assured victories in her wake. Having gotten a bye owing to her 3rd seed standing, she met Italy\u2019s Alessia Messiano in the Round of 16, winning through with a 5-0 victory. She took on Colombia\u2019s Angie Valdes and repeated her UD feat.<\/p>\n

That victory set-up a famous re-run of the Tokyo lightweight final, against silver medalist and subsequently pro boxer, Brazil\u2019s Beatriz Ferreira. This was a superb bout between two of the highest level lightweight practioneers of the Sweet Science \u2013 but Kellie was resolute and tactically asute throughout, coming away with the 4-1 win.<\/p>\n

Kellie boxed out of the blue corner when she stepped between the ropes in her Olympic final against Yang. <\/p>\n

On that fateful August night, Kellie gave a masterful display in round one, switching her stance constantly, and expertly deflecting anything that came her way to win it 4-1 on the scoreboard. She slipped and momentarily hit the canvas early in the second but still won it 4- 1. Kellie totally dominated the final round again on a 4-1 score line to win the bout 4-1 on points, and make Irish Olympic history, celebrating then with a very special ring dance, joined by long-time head coach Zuari Anita.<\/p>\n

\"\" Photo by Stephen McCarthy\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n

Afterwards an overjoyed Harrington spoke of what it meant: \u201cIt just gives hope. All these young kids all these teenagers, it give hope to them, it gives hope to the people of Ireland, that\u2019s what it means, but this one was for me.\u201d <\/p>\n

Kellie set another record that night \u2013 her final, broadcast by RTE- had the highest viewership of any sporting event in the stations history. 1.4 million people tuned in to watch her claim glory, and her bout was streamed 7.2 million times on the RTE Player.<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo: Brendan Moran\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo Stephen McCarthy\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo: Brendan Moran\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n

The Paris 2024 Olympic team also included 50kg Daina Moorehouse, 54kg Jennifer Lehane, 57kg Michaela Walsh, 66kg Grainne Walsh, 75kg Aoife O\u2019Rourke, 57kg Jude Gallagher, 63.5kg Dean Clancy, 71kg Aidan Walsh and 92kg Jack Marley. It was led by then High Performance Director Tricia Heberle, Head Coach Zauri Antia, Coaches Damian Kennedy, Lynne McEnery and James Doyle, with Team Doctor Jim Clover and Team Physio, Lorcan McGee.<\/p>\n

Kellie\u2019s Paris 2024 gold is the 19th\u00a0Irish Olympic medal won in the sport of boxing, and cements the sport\u2019s status as Ireland\u2019s most successul Olympic sport.<\/p>\n

John McNally: Silver, men\u2019s bantamweight, 1952, Helsinki<\/p>\n

Fred Tiedt: Silver, men\u2019s welterweight, 1956, Melbourne<\/p>\n

Tony Byrne: Bronze, men\u2019s lightweight, 1956, Melbourne<\/p>\n

John Caldwell: Bronze, men\u2019s flyweight, 1956, Melbourne<\/p>\n

Freddie Gilroy: Bronze, men\u2019s bantamweight, 1956, Melbourne<\/p>\n

Jim McCourt: Bronze, men\u2019s lightweight, 1964, Tokyo<\/p>\n

Hugh Russell: Bronze, men\u2019s flyweight, 1980, Moscow<\/p>\n

Michael Carruth: Gold, men\u2019s welterweight, 1992, Barcelona<\/p>\n

Wayne McCullough: Silver, men\u2019s bantamweight, 1992, Barcelona<\/p>\n

Kenneth Egan: Silver, men\u2019s light heavyweight, 2008, Beijing<\/p>\n

Darren Sutherland: Bronze, men\u2019s middleweight, 2008, Beijing<\/p>\n

Paddy Barnes: Bronze, men\u2019s light flyweight, 2008, Beijing; Bronze, men\u2019s light flyweight, 2012, London<\/p>\n

Katie Taylor: Gold, women\u2019s lightweight, 2012, London<\/p>\n

John Joe Nevin: Silver, men\u2019s bantamweight, 2012, London<\/p>\n

Michael Conlan: Bronze, men\u2019s flyweight, 2012, London<\/p>\n

Aidan Walsh: Bronze, men\u2019s welterweight, 2021, Tokyo<\/p>\n

Kellie Harrington: Gold, female lightweight, 2021, Tokyo; Gold, female lightweight, 2024, Paris<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo by David Fitzgerald\/Sportsfile Its a year to the day since Kellie Harrington made Irish Olympic history, by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-47212","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\/47212","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=47212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}