Aidan Walsh

The guy actually went on to win a medal at the Worlds right after it.

Everybody was like, what are you doing, Aidan?

No, you have to stay.

I was like, no, I want to go home, and I just can't do it no more.

Went home, stepped away from sport, and then I was the winner, retired previously before the Olympics.

But sport's hard, and I think people don't realise the amount of pressure and anxiety

that athletes are under like everybody in normal like mental health rates are massive in Ireland and when you go to elite sports the risks increase because of the pressures the anxieties do you know the demands that is on elite athletes is absolutely crazy especially nowadays with social media and phones and like

everything's public so you can't get away you can't hide you go on your phone and there's articles about you you go on social media people write negative things about you athletes are under so so much pressure and i think that's the role i do now like athlete support it's like how do you help athletes enjoy sport for what it is and that transition in the sport and most importantly out of sport yeah yeah because that is such a big thing you see so much when people retire they don't know what to do with themselves because they can literally

Yeah, so I come from Aldertown in West Belfast.

working class area, went to school there, De La Salle.

Yeah, just like a normal childhood but obviously within, right from West Belfast, it was a rough enough area and it was tough enough, the school I went to, like all working class areas, schools, it's tough and you have to be able to defend yourself.

My dad, he went to the same school and he sort of knew that, okay, going to this school, you have to sort of be able to defend yourself.

He brought us to the boxing club.

But when we went to the boxing club first, there was no female boxers there.

So Michaela, she seen that I was going to the boxing club two or three nights a week and she kept saying, Daddy, Daddy, can you bring me to the boxing club?

He ended up going down and asking the coach, said, listen, is it alright if she jumps in?

So she jumped in and started training with us and then she was just blowing all the lads out of the water, no training and stuff.

So that's where our journey started together then in St Agnes' in Andersonstown Road.

And then, yeah, just school was, school was a massive part of my growing up because the boxing club and school

taught me straight away that boxing in my life was going to be so important when i went in the school all the lads in the boxing club went to the same school so straight away i was protected and all the lads were say i was first year the lads were second year third year fourth year so you were going into school people who were well known in the boxing clubs well regarded in school you weren't getting bullied you weren't getting picked on and straight away i was like