“I can’t wait to eat what I want.”
One can only imagine the rollercoaster of emotions that follows you when you not only achieve your life’s ambitions, but that achievement is something as incredible as an Olympic gold medal.
Sheer joy, ecstasy, relief, and a huge sense of pride – but then because of COVID, the lack of contact with the outside world in that Olympic bubble, and being a long way from home, it makes it difficult to see the gravity of your win.
Throw in the fact that you’re now essentially famous overnight and everybody wants a piece of you – asking for interviews, photos and things that you’re not used to dealing with – it can feel overwhelming.
This is currently the life of Dublin’s Kellie Harrington, who has just landed home from Tokyo with Olympic gold draped around her neck and a smile on her face, but her exhaustion equals her happiness.
“I haven’t actually slept since the fight, and I just had like a couple of snoozes on the plane there, because my head is just ready to explode.
“I feel quite motionless right now because I’m tired, or I don’t know, I’ve never experienced this before.
“When I came back from the World Championships there were people there and it was all my family and friends, but today when you come through, like there’s only a couple of family and friends there because of the COVID restrictions and stuff.
“The media is everywhere and they’re asking me questions left, right and centre, and that just feels weird for me, I’m not used to that.
“It hasn’t even hasn’t hit me, I’m just like ‘what are all these people doing, what do they want from me?’ I just feel like I’ve been to a normal competition, when I suppose that’s just the way I always go into every competition.
“I just treat it as a normal competition but it’s not, it’s actually the Olympic Games and it’s just mad, I can’t really believe it to be very honest with you.
“For me to realise what’s going on, it will take me a couple of weeks to not be around the team, to not be in that environment, and to actually realise what has happened, and what I’ve achieved.
“As boring as it sounds, I just want to put my feet up on the chair, sit on the sofa, watch a bit of telly or listen to the radio, and have a tea with scones, and cakes, and stuff that I can actually eat now, without getting up every morning to check my weight.
“I make the weight quite easy, but I’m very strict with my diet, so not having to be as strict with it is going to be brilliant, and I can just eat what I want.”
