ELEVENTH HEAVEN – Kellie Harrington and Michaela Walsh Hunt History
Kellie Harrington and Michaela Walsh can make Irish boxing history at the National Stadium this Saturday night.
If the Olympic lightweight champion and the featherweight with a hat trick of Commonwealth Games medals beat Zara Breslin and Kellie McLoughlin at the home of Irish boxing respectively, they will become the first 11-time Irish National Elite [formerly Senior] Champions.
Currently, the Dublin and Belfast stars are 10-time titlist and sit in the standings beside Olympic medal winner Kenneth Egan and Jim O’Sullivan.
O’Sullivan was the first to achieve the feat with Egan the first and only person to make it 10 in a row.
Olympic gold medal winner Harrington won her first title a decade ago, defeating Alhana Neill in the semi-finals and Sarah Close by an old point-scoring score of 13-10 in the final.
The likes of Moira McElligot, Kayleigh Murrihy McCormack, new pro Shauna O’Keefe, Jelena Jelic and fellow World Championship gold medal winner Amy Broadhurst were also accounted for in finals over the years.
Like Harrington, 33, Walsh has been collecting international medals over a glittering career while banking domestic titles.
The Belfast boxer was first crowned Irish champion as far back as 2011 when she was just 17. She beat Dearbhla Duffy to become an Irish champion, she overcame the same opposition in the decider a year later. She then got the better of Joanne Lamb by a point in the 2013 final before a third-decider win over Duffy. Ceire Smith, Emma Agnew and Kelsey Leonard are also on the list of the serial European medal winner’s final victims.
