Claire Lambe Rower

FORMER Olympian turned RTÉ pundit Claire Lambe knows she’ll have to control her emotions when her sister takes to the water at the Tokyo Olympics.

Lambe (31) — who made the final of her rowing event in Rio in 2016 — has since retired and now her little sister Emer (23) will be flying the flag this year for the family, who are from Cabra in Dublin.

Claire, who will be watching the women’s fours race from her pundit’s chair in Donnybrook, says she’ll have to bite her lip watching Emer. ‘It’s very exciting, we’re very proud of her. All my sisters have been into rowing,’ she tells Magazine.

‘We started at Islandbridge doing a summer camp and it grew from there. Competing in the Olympics is the dream and this year Ireland has already had a better Olympics than ever before.

‘Even before a race has taken place, we have qualified nine women who have real medal prospects. Before this, the most women who’ve ever competed in the Olympics was four. One in the 1980s, one in 2012 and two in Rio of which I was one.

‘So we’re already winners. But I also think we’ve a very good chance of medals.’

Lambe, who is a qualified engineer, now works for Rowing Ireland promoting women’s participation in sport. She decided to retire from professional rowing in 2018 due to the intense commitments of professional sport.

The Dubliner and Sinéad Lynch (above) finished sixth at the 2016 Games in the lightweight women’s double sculls final. The duo wrote history as the first ever Irish women’s crew to make it to an Olympic rowing final.

In other career highlights, Lambe came fourth in the lightweight single scull at the 2013

European Championships and finished ninth at the Worlds in 2015.

‘My goal had always been to be an Olympian and I gave eight years of my life to that,’ she says. ‘I didn’t qualify for London 2012 in the end but we made it to Rio, made the final, came sixth. I came away from that Olympiad very satisfied. I felt we’d really achieved.’

Her engineering career then took her to Cambridge University where she took a postgraduate degree in sustainable development and also competed in the famous boat race.

Claire is now back working in sport and also helping those less fortunate to fulfil their sporting dreams. Last year she recruited Olympians devastated by the postponement of the Tokyo Games to help asylum seekers in Direct Provision centres during the pandemic. Current and former Olympians including Sanita Puspure, Thomas Barr, Annalise Murphy, Natalya Coye and Ciarán O’Lionáird provided special virtual exercise routines to help people in Direct Provision centres cope with the Covid-19 crisis. ‘It’s great to see the passion for change that sport can effect,’ Claire says.

-Nicola Byrne