Unique bra helps Lambert to aim for gold
Hbritish para-shooter is now benefiting from research into specialist sports clothing and how it can aid female athletes
At 50 metres away from her target, British para-shooter Lorraine Lambert is effectively trying to hit a shirt button. To do that successfully, she cannot let any part of her rifle touch her body which, until very recently, demanded her utmost concentration. “One of my biggest challenges is that I’m not small busted,” she says over Zoom, holding up an item of clothing in front of her webcam.
It is a bespoke sports bra which has been tailor made for Lambert, who will be competing at her second Paralympics later this week.
“It’s like the heaviest bra you’ve ever known,” she laughs. “I’m not joking – it weighs about a kilo.”
It is the end product of a unique initiative led by the English Institute of Sport, which has been working with breast health experts for two years in search of marginal performance gains for its female athletes.
In collaboration with Portsmouth University, which has long been a pioneering research hub in breast health, and underwear manufacturer Clover, the EIS has kitted out more than 100 female Olympians and Paralympians for the Tokyo Games with properly-fitted bras. Lambert, however, is one of a small number of athletes who has had one designed according to her specific needs.
Her breast tissue needed to be relocated and put in a place where it could not interfere with her weapon, allowing her to have better stability and control of it, while preventing the microscopic movements of her heartbeat from being transferred to her weapon.
The process started in lockdown last year with Zoom meetings, where Lambert enlisted the help of her husband to “measure bits” before having 360-degree scans done at Portsmouth University after restrictions were lifted. For Lambert, the psychological edge has been game changing. “It’s been absolutely amazing and it feels so comfortable to wear,” she says.
“It supports me in all the right
places and flattens me down so that I can concentrate on my shooting – the thought of the actual gun touching me did play on my mind before. Now, I can fully relax and know it’s not going to happen.”
Lambert competes in the SH1 classification and has never looked back since picking up a gun at the Limbpower Games in 2010, just months after having her leg amputated after years of persistent pain from a fall while rock climbing. She excelled at the sport, which rekindled childhood memories of being in the naval cadets, and went on to claim silver and bronze World Cup titles in 2017 and 2019 respectively.
According to 70 British female athletes surveyed as part of the EIS and Portsmouth University’s bra
project, three-quarters said they had never been fitted for a sports bra, while half reported breast pain at certain times of their menstrual cycle, affecting their ability to train.
“One of the things that came out of this project was that a lot of athletes weren’t even considering their bra fit properly,” Dr Anita Biswas, the co-lead for female athlete health and performance at the EIS, said.
“Just by being fitted properly and having a bra that fitted them, we were able to reduce or eliminate breast pain in a lot of athletes related to their sport. It seems crazy that we haven’t been talking about it before, but now we’ve got a Games where there are more female athletes than males on the British team.”
While the Paralympics will be her
first competition in 18 months due to the pandemic, Lambert will be hoping to improve on her fifth-place finish in the women’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions SH1 at the Rio Games.
Inspired by the feats of British Olympic silver weightlifting medallist Emily Campbell, who has long been an advocate for plus size women, there is a more poignant message she hopes to amplify from the sports bra project.
“Now is the time for manufacturers to get on board and say, ‘Actually you don’t have to be a size eight and have no bust to be a sportsperson’,” Lambert says. “It’s important that sports bras aren’t a one-hit wonder.
“If it means that more women can go to the gym and feel more comfortable, then I’m all for it.”