Killucan native captures iconic Olympic 100 metres final in ‘career highlight’

Standing at the finish line for what has been dubbed the greatest ever 100m final at an Olympic Games was a “career highlight” for Áine Leech.

The Killucan native was working for the Olympic Broadcasting Service in Paris, filming social media content which was being shared worldwide.

Áine described getting “goosebumps” in the Stade de France as the fastest man on earth contest unfolded, culminating in a photo finish where Noah Lyles of the USA narrowly edged out Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson by five-thousandths of a second.

Going one step further, the social media content creator managed to follow Lyles into his dressing room after the race for an interview.

“I waited for him to finish his on-track interviews and followed him to his physio with a Netflix crew, who I didn’t know were Netflix at the time,” she told the Examiner.

“He was a metre away, there were four of us in the room, and I asked him what his favourite experience from the Olympic Village was so far, and he told me he had a crazy story: “’I was sitting beside this Irish guy who looked kind of dorky while getting a haircut, and next thing you know, three days later, the dude gets a gold medal.

“It was Daniel Wiffen, and he told me the story by chance not knowing I was Irish! It was probably the highlight of my career.”

In her downtime, Áine also witnessed Kellie Harrington successfully defending her Olympic title in the Women’s 60kg fight, making her the first Irish woman to retain an Olympic gold medal.

“The stadium was filled with Algerian fans for the Imane Khelif fight beforehand, and for a while I thought the stadium would be empty for Kellie,” she said.

“But then you could see all of the Irish flags popping up and there was just this sea of green.

“There were Chinese people chanting, but you couldn’t hear it over the Irish chanting: ‘Kellie, Kellie, Kellie’.

“Everyone was behind her, it was insane, and you could see how much it meant to her, she was bawling her eyes out after she won.”

Áine managed to meet some of Ireland’s Olympic medallists in their downtime too.

“We were filming content and got Kellie to take part in a game with us for social media the day before her fight, which was great,” she said.

“I also got to meet Charlene [Mawdsley], you’d see a lot of the distance runners around the village, and I got to do a little interview with Rhys [McCleneghan] who was very nice.

“I went up to Daniel Wiffen and congratulated him on his win and couldn’t believe I was talking to him.

“The atmosphere has been absolutely amazing in the Olympic Village and all the venues."

Áine’s skills previously earned her the Wedding Content Creator of the Year award in March, and after the Olympics, she will be traveling to Barcelona to work at the America’s Cup, the world’s oldest international sailing competition.