Niamh Fay is preparing to contest the 2024 European U22 Championships – and she’s letting us in on her preparations as part of the Seconds Out: Stories of Irish Boxing series, supported by Sport Ireland.
Niamh, who contests at 57kg, is a full-time High Performance athlete in training at the Boxing High Performance Unit. She claimed gold in this tournament in 2022, and has gone on to win 2024 European Elite Championship bronze. She’s also a two time Irish U22 champion, and an Elite champion at 54kg.
Niamh, known as “Fast Hands’ is a proud member of her club, Phoenix of Ballyboughal BC in the Fingal area of North County Dublin. She shows how she balances her nutrition, boxing technical training, strength and conditioning, rest and recovery, and coaching in her clubhouse as part of her daily life. During training blocs, Niamh lives at Boxing House on the Sport Ireland campus, and gives real insight in to the sense of camaraderie in the squad, and the drive, commitment and mindset required to be a High Performance athlete.
Niamh says “From coming in here three years ago, there’s so much I’ve changed, there’s so much I’d adapted – and it’s just brilliant. I’m not there yet, and I know that. I still have things, and there’s always going to be things, even if you’re a World champion, that you have to approve on. You need to be in that area. There’s no point in doing the things that you like, all of the time. It’s getting out of that comfort zone”
Niamh adds “It’s remembering to enjoy the dream – that I am in here, among the greatest and with the best, and I’m training with them and just enjoying the whole process instead of being so hard on yourself the whole time. Again, it’s important to be to hard on yourself because you want to push those extra boundaries but just giving yourself that little bit of self-love and minding yourself through the whole journey”
This short film, a peek inside High Performance, is part of a series of shorts on Irish Boxing – Seconds Out: Stories of Irish Boxing, commissioned by IABA and produced by Lowki Culture.