It is suitably teasing that the final episode of the Path to Paris documentary series begins with the utterly euphoric days in the life of Kellie Harrington in the aftermath of her winning the Olympic gold medal in Tokyo.
“There’s been times in my career when people say the whole country is behind you,” Harrington gleefully recalls of that unforgettable moment she won the lightweight boxing title. “This time I really, really feel the whole country is behind me.”
It then cuts to her wedding day in Dublin, eight months later, when her long-time partner Mandy Loughlin also recalls some of the testing times that Harrington has already been through, as the happy couple now prepare to move into their new home in Portland Row in inner city Dublin.
“She’s amazing, the stamina she has is something to be admired,” Loughlin says. “To consistently fight that battle, the mental battle, the physical battle, everything together, and see it pay off with all the highs ... it’s magic.”
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Because there is at least some sense the viewer knows what is coming, and Path to Paris soon takes us there too, and the very public controversy after a retweet Harrington posted in October 2022, citing a right-wing pundit on GB News talking about the death of a 12-year-old girl in France at the hands of an Algerian immigrant.
Harrington had worded that “Our own leaders need to take a listen to this”, and with that evidently linking immigration to crime in Ireland.
At the time she was in Montenegro, competing in the European Championships, which she subsequently won. Though promptly deleted and largely forgotten, the retweet was then raised at a sponsor’s press event, in March of last year, part of which was an interview with Off The Ball.
Harrington’s annoyed and overly offensive response did not win her many admirers, but what was less known at the time was just how low she had gone in the aftermath, and she recalls that in sombre detail here.
“After everything that happened with the whole social media, interview, and stuff ... the ‘she says, who says, they say, and she believes and she doesn’t believe’ and what have you ... I kind of spiralled downhill. I didn’t spiral out of control, but just went to the really darkest of the darkest places.
“And it made me realise who actually has my back, in life, when the chips are actually down. These are the actual people who are there for you, who are checking in on you, who are making sure you’re all right, and that you’re looking after your mental state, which wasn’t great.”
From that low, it was a slow rebuild, a gradual re-emergence to public life, which started with her qualification for the Paris Olympics, a full year out, when winning the European Games in Poland in June of last summer,
“I am made of strong stuff,” she says, “and I have a very small, strong circle ... and that’s what got me through, what got me here. My family and Mandy. People want to build you up, but they’ll tear you down just as quick.
“Going out to Paris, being very honest with you, I’m not focused on a medal. I’m focused on performing, focused on just being me and just feeling good again. That’s all I want, just to feel good again.
“That’s what drives me. It’s not about being the greatest, it’s not about bringing back a medal, it’s not about anything like that. It’s about that feeling of ‘I’m just going to get this done, because this is what I’ve worked for’.”
Path to Paris followed nine Irish athletes on their journey to the Olympics and Paralympics, and there is some gentle irony in the fact that the last episode also includes the story of Hiko Tonosa Haso, a refugee from Ethiopia who came through the direct provision system, as he sets out to qualify for the Olympic marathon in Paris.
– The final episode of Path to Paris airs on RTÉ1 on Thursday night at 10.10pm.
