A Cavan boxing coach says Kellie Harrington's win will give a huge boost to amateur boxing in Ireland.
Harrington beat number 1 seed, Yang Wenlu, in the Women's lightweight final to take home gold at the Paris Olympics last night.
She becomes the first Irish female boxer to win consecutive Olympic gold medals after her success in Tokyo three years ago. The win is Ireland's 4th Olympic gold this summer in what has been the country's most successful games yet. Cavan boxing coach, Brian McKeown, who coached Mullingar's John Joe Nevin to a silver medal at the London Olympics, says Kellie's win gave a much needed morale boost to the country, especially following the controversy surrounding the defeats suffered by Aoife O'Rourke and Daina Moorehouse.
Speaking on the Joe Finnegan show, Brian remarked that it cements Irish boxing as one of the best in the world
"We'll it'll lift the morale for the Irish people as a whole. For Irish amateur boxing it just cements our reputation as the premiere medal winners in Olympic competition here in Ireland. There could be a lot more money pushed at local level for organisation, training coaches, things like that. There has to be some sort of an opening for young boxers coming through that are not in the high performance unit".
