KELLIE HARRINGTON has vowed to ditch the bus and walk down Portland Row after becoming the first Irish woman to win medals at two Olympic Games.
Tokyo gold medallist Harrington claimed her second unanimous decision to defeat Angie Paolo Valdes Pana of Colombia in her quarter-final.
That guarantees her at least bronze and, whilst she was initially reluctant to contemplate the significance of her achievement, she later admitted she is looking forward to her homecoming to meet the people who ‘have her back’.
Her Tokyo homecoming – when Covid-19 was still a major consideration – saw her and fellow boxer Emmet Brennan travel through Dublin’s inner city on an open-top bus.
Harrington – who spent two hours with doping control after her bout – said: “I am super proud of where I come from, and all those people always have my back.
“Whether I win or whether I lose, and that’s when you see who’s really there, when the chips are down, they’re there for me when the chips are down and I can’t thank those people enough.
“I can’t wait to get home and see all those people, Portland Row is going to be absolutely hopping when we get home and there won’t be a bus.
“This time I’ll be able to walk down the street, celebrate and meet everybody and thank them.”
Harrington secured Ireland’s third medal of the Games after swimmers Daniel Wiffen and Mona McSharry.
And she said: I know Mona and Daniel both medalled, and that’s fantastic, you know, but I’ve been in my bubble for the last five weeks, five or six weeks.
This Olympics is about me enjoying it, it’s about me doing it for me, and me being happy again, and being happy in what I’m doing.
“When we came out here on July and I stepped in the ring and stepped back out of the ring, I became a double Olympian.
“Then I became a double Olympic medallist, that’s more history, and I’m very, very proud of myself.
“I just know that I have people up there above looking down on me and they’re with me every step of the way.”
Harrington had no intention of watching her next opponent with Brazil’s Beatriz Ferreira – whom she beat in the final in Tokyo – overcoming/losing to Chelsey Heijnen of Holland.
Harrington said: “I trust the coaches so much and my own coach back home as well, Noel Burke, so much that I don’t need to watch the other boxers.
“Then I just try to stick to a plan, we go out, we give it what we have and if it works, it works, and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.
“It’s just sport. This does not define me as a person. It’s fantastic, I’ve made history but I’m Kellie Harrington, the good person and that’s what I want to be known as.”