I felt guilty for being happy and relieved when so many others were going through such difficult times
Injury would have prevented Sarah Lavin going to Tokyo last year... she feels lucky to get another shot
IT IS a bright April afternoon in Limerick and Sarah Lavin’s demeanour reflects the spring sunshine that is streaming into the room behind her. It is just over three months to the Tokyo Olympics and, while there are some Japanese officials still expressing concerns about the show going on, the sprint hurdler can see a clear road stretching towards that starting line.
In a wonderful indoor season for Irish athletes, Lavin’s star was one of the brightest. She clocked six personal bests for the 60m hurdles, including two in 24 hours in Madrid on her way to third in the World Indoor Tour final.
She also finished ninth in the European Championships, 0.1 of a second outside a place in the final.
‘Yeah, it was great. To set PBs six times. I have waited seven years for a PB and then six come in one season,’ she says with a laugh. ‘It is every athlete’s ambition. Ultimately, you want to be in major finals and winning major medals but being able to say on a given day, you have run faster than you ever did before is special, too. And I was able to say that six times this season, so I have to be happy.
‘Ultimately, I would have loved to have made the final in the Europeans, get into the top eight. But I still finished ninth in Europe and you are always going to want that little bit more. It means there is room for improvement.’
Lavin comes across as a chatty, positive presence even on a Zoom call and it is easy to understand why the Olympic Federation of Ireland asked her to promote their ‘Road to Tokyo’ school challenge which will take place over the month of May.
However, had this interview taken place just over a year ago, it might have been a very different Lavin.
Back then she felt deflated and despondent. In her first indoor race of the 2020 season, she sustained ‘a freak injury’, completely tearing the main ligament in her left ankle as well as two lateral ligaments. Having missed the 2016 Rio Olympics because of a foot injury, it felt like deja vu.
‘Yeah, a stress fracture of my foot,’ she recalls of the 2016 injury. ‘I couldn’t believe it when it happened again. They are the only two serious injuries I have had and both happened in an Olympic year and, let’s face it, the Olympics are the pinnacle of this sport.’
Within a few weeks of visiting John McKenna in Sports Surgery Clinic in Santry and given a rehabilitation plan by Ger Hartmann, the world was thrown into chaos by coronavirus.
By the end of March, it was clear that the Olympics would not go ahead in 2020.
Lavin admits she feels a certain level of guilt about finding a silver lining in a global pandemic, but the fact remains, if Tokyo had gone ahead as scheduled, there wasn’t a hope that she would have made it.
‘I felt guilty for being happy and relieved when so many others were going through such tough and difficult times. And it was devastating for so many athletes too, speaking to some of them, they were finding it hard to motivate themselves for another year of training. But I couldn’t believe my luck.
‘It was like when you are playing a computer game and you get that extra life, like on Mario Kart when you can power up and get another shot at it.
‘That is what I am – I’m after getting another shot at it. And I got time to get my ankle right. It has been a blessing, a real blessing, the only way to describe it.’
PRIME TIME
Lavin turns 27 next month, so she should be hitting her prime as an athlete at just the right time. As she points out, the postponed Olympics means that – all going well – she could compete in two Olympic Games, two World Championships and a couple of Europeans in the next three years.
‘It is an exciting time to be an athlete. Olympics this year, World Championships next year and another Olympics on the horizon. If you are going to get it right for three or four years of your career, this is