Sarah Lavin represented Ireland in the women’s 100 metres hurdles at two Olympic Games, finishing 32nd at Tokyo 2020 and reaching the semi-finals at Paris 2024, where she recorded a time of 12.69 seconds.

At the Paris Games she also had the honour of carrying the Irish flag at the Opening Ceremony along the River Seine alongside Shane Lowry – a proud moment for a Limerick athlete who had overcome significant adversity to reach a second Olympics.

Lavin is from Limerick and has been a member of Emerald AC since the age of seven, coached throughout her career by Noelle Morrissey. She shares a birthday – 28 May – with her predecessor as Irish record holder Derval O’Rourke, born 13 years earlier. She attended UCD as an Ad Astra scholar, studying physiotherapy, and the knowledge she gained there made her acutely aware of the warning signs of relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S), a condition she developed through over-training and under-eating, which led to a stress fracture and caused her to miss the Rio 2016 Olympics. She won silver at the European Under-20 Championships in 2013 and broke O’Rourke’s Irish 100 metres hurdles record in 2023 with 12.62 seconds.

In the months before Paris she had been dealing with the loss of her partner, rally driver Craig Breen, who died in a rallying accident in April 2023. She dedicated her performances in Paris to his memory.