Kellie Harrington won’t with Amy Broadhurst coach to avoid ‘spy in the camp’ scenario

Kellie Harrington has revealed she won’t work with Eoin Pluck ahead of the Paris Olympics.

Pluck, a respected emerging coach, is in a relationship with World, European and Commonwealth gold medal winner Amy Broadhurst, who recently switched allegiance to Team GB.

Reigning Olympic lightweight champion, Harrington believes Broadhurst will earn her ticket to Paris via the final Olympic qualifier route within the next two weeks, and thus thinks it wouldn’t be right to have Broadhurst’s partner as part of her coaching setup.

The Inner City Dub went as far as to say it would be akin to having a spy in the camp.

“He won’t be involved with me,” she Harrington said during a Spar event on Wednesday. “which is a shame because he’s a great coach.

“But, I mean, you can’t have that, like. Essentially, it’s a spy in the camp, so you can’t have that.”

While Harrington won’t work with Pluck for obvious reasons, the St Mary’s BC star has revealed she has no issue whatsoever with former teammate Broadhurst.

“I’d be good friends with Amy, like. There’s no bad blood or bad feelings towards Amy. She was a team-mate.

“We don’t really have bad blood in Team Ireland and beyond!”

Aside from the external drama and its various subplots, Harrington’s focus is on Paris. The 34-year-old decorated star qualified last summer and with the games fast approaching says she began the transition to game-face mode last week.

“The switch-on started last week, trying to switch on now, and trying to prepare for the big show basically.

“It’s a long tunnel, and it’s been a wide tunnel, because I qualified last year, in the European Games. And it’s been a long wait now, obviously. The focus hasn’t been there, but now it’s starting to shift, as of last week.”