Kurt Walker pulled off a shock at the Olympics on Wednesday morning by beating world champ Mirazizbek Mirzakhlilov.
The Belfast welterweight got Ireland's boxers off to a winning start last Saturday by seeing off Spaniard Jose Quiles Brotons.
Fancied Uzbek boxer Mirzakhlilov, his opponent on Wednesday morning, was seen as a class above.
But Walker has avoided the fate of team captain Brendan Irvine, Emmet Brennan and Michaela Walsh in exiting the Olympic ring and joins Aidan Walsh in having a quarter-final bout.
Had everything gone to plan Walker would have returned home with an Olympic medal last August, just one day before his baby was due to be born.
But life has a way of throwing best-laid plans into disarray.
Walker suffered a shock defeat in the Olympic qualifiers in March 2020, just two days before the shutters went down on the London tournament as Covid-19 arrived on European shores.
Then his daughter was born on May 17, some three months early.
Walker's girlfriend Ria went for a routine check-up and the doctors found that she had pre-eclampsia, a complication in pregnancy caused by high blood pressure that can result in organ damage.
"We just went up one day and that was it, they just had to get the baby out," explained Walker.
Ria was rushed from the Ulster Hospital to Antrim Area Hospital, where she gave birth to Layla, who weighed only 700 grams (1.54 lbs or 25 ounces).
A fortnight later, her parents were told that if her condition didn't improve over six hours then she would die, but she improved inside two.
Speaking earlier this year, Walker said: "She had a few bad turns. We had our ups and downs then.
"There were times we had to stay over, otherwise every day Ria would go in and see Layla for an hour and a half, then she would come back out and I'd go in."
Layla spent the first three months of her life in hospital. She was christened in an incubator. Eventually she came home.
"Everything's brilliant now," Walker smiled. "She's thriving."
What happened last year, all of it, brought perspective to his life.
He thinks back to how he was before Layla arrived into his world.
"I was devastated to lose that qualifier in March," recalled the 26-year-old. "I knew he won but I was just devastated.
"That was the end of the world. I came home and I was stuck in the house, thinking it over.
"But then I found out there are more important things. I realised that boxing isn't everything.
"Before my daughter was born it was everything I thought about. It was all or nothing.
"But that was the most important thing, getting everything sorted with Layla.
"I didn't think about boxing for maybe four or five months. I hardly did anything, to be honest. No gym work, I just kept up some small things, a bit of jogging."
Walker returned to training last July and says "everything else is a bonus now".
He will now face American Duke Ragan on Friday morning.
