PARIS — Kellie Harrington beat Yang Wenlu of China by split decision in the final of the lightweight category at the Paris Olympics on Tuesday to retain her crown and become the first Irish boxer to win back-to-back gold medals.
After clinching victory, Harrington said she was hanging up her gloves.
“The last hurrah, I’m done. I’ve always said I want to retire a champion, that’s it,” Harrington told Irish national broadcaster RTE. “It just gives hope to all these young kids, all these teenagers (pointing at the crowd). It gives hope to the people of Ireland, but this one was for me.”
She later told reporters: “When you reach a mountain, find a bigger mountain. And that’s what I’ve done. It wasn’t easy to climb that mountain.”
Asked what would come next in her career, Harrington said: “(There are) no more mountains.
“The next chapter is going to be my life chapter, and it’s for me and (wife) Mandy now. I just can’t wait to live my life. Not that I’m not living my life, but to not be looking at the scales every morning. (As a boxer) everything is like, ‘Well you can’t do that because you might get injured,’ or ‘We can’t do that because you’ll be tired tomorrow.'”
Brazil’s Beatriz Ferreira and Taiwan’s Wu Shih-yi claimed the two bronze medals on offer after losing their semifinal bouts against Harrington and Yang, respectively.
Former world champion Harrington, who impressed in a convincing win over Tokyo silver medalist Ferreira in the semifinals, faced Yang in the light welterweight final at the 2016 world championships in Kazakhstan.
On that occasion, the Chinese boxer won. But eight years later and fighting at a different weight, Harrington was a much tougher proposition.
She won the first two rounds with relative ease, gliding around the ring with her silky footwork and peppering her opponent with shots from range.
Perhaps hoping to sign off her amateur career with a bang, Harrington was less careful in the final round and adopted a more aggressive approach, which resulted in her losing the round, though the damage was already done for Yang.
A delighted Harrington, roared on by a sea of Irish fans at Court Philippe-Chatrier, embraced her coaches in her corner before falling to her knees in the ring and thumping the mat. She delighted her fans with a rousing rendition of “Grace.”
“It was absolutely amazing. I said to the coaches after singing — ‘Is there anything I won’t do?’ — it was brilliant,” Harrington said of her performance. “The Irish are just great, I never expected anything like that; this is something — I’m never ever going to forget this, ever.”
Reuters contributed to this report.