Ellen Keane has stepped out of the pool at a major event for the last time and has done so with not a single regret.
The icing on the cake from the Paris 24 Paralympics, her fifth games having started in Beijing at the age of 13, came when she was told last week that she would be carrying the Irish flag at the closing ceremony in the Stade de France.
“I burst into tears when Neasa Russell, the Chef de Mission told me I would be doing it alongside Michael Murphy. “It was a very special moment.”
Kene has been training physically or thinking about high performance swimming since she was ten years old, the age at which she did her first anti-doping test.
“Oh God, I couldn’t tell you when I last had a long break from it. Even during Covid, we were thinking and working from home on keeping up the physical training,” she told us in a media session with her long term sponsor Allianz yesterday.
“The Sport Ireland Institute have been great over the past three years as I started to plan in my own head for taking this next step.”
“They had a team over in Paris as well so this is something that I have felt really supported from within the programme, as well as with all my support team at swim Ireland and Paralympics Ireland.”
“I’ve not set a deadline on when I have to decide on what the next chapter will look like.”
“Over the years I have worked with great people and spread out in the range of things I have tried and the skills I have developed.”
“In time now we will figure it out, what happens next, and I’m looking forward to doing that.”
“It’s only scary at the thought of maybe making the wrong decision.”
“So that’s more what I’m being really, really careful and mindful of, just making sure that I’m taking this time that I’m reflecting and I’m really focusing on what’s making me happy, what’s not making me happy, so that when I do make the decision I’m chasing the next dream rather than settling for trying to make a living.”
“I really want to live a life where I’m fulfilled by accomplishing goals and that’s how I’ve grown up. I’m retiring from sport, I’m not retiring from high performance.”
When asked about the sport, she spoke of the new National Swimming Strategy as one that could deliver for clubs and updating facilities around the country.
She did not feel that 25 metre pools had been a stopping factor in the development of young athletes but that the creation perhaps of a second 50 metre pool at the Sport Ireland Campus would be good to enable Ireland to host more World class events.
She is the child that grew into a woman in the full spotlight of public interest and did so at all times with grace and a sense of joy.
From the book to the Allianz ads, from showing herself as comfortable with her own difference, to inspiring others to a similar place, she has left a legacy in this early part of her life that few can claim to match.
“The self-love from my perspective came from seeing what incredible things that my body could do and I guess the most amazing thing about the ‘Stop the drop’ campaign is trying to encourage young people to stay involved in sport because that’s where you can learn to be a bit more confident and learn to love your body.”
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