Sarah Lavin aiming for nothing less than podium place in Europeans

She approaches the championships in Italy’s capital in eye-catching form.

Ireland’s Sarah Lavin during her semi-final at the 2022 European Athletics Championships. Picture: ©INPHO/Morgan Treacy

Sarah Lavin still gets a kick out of the last European Championships. It’s not just that she set a new personal best (since beaten) with a 12.79 and finished fifth in the 100m hurdles. It was the efforts of others like Ciara Mageean, Rhasidat Adeleke and Israel Olatunde who set the tone for Ireland in Munich in 2022 long before she hit the track.

Her first Europeans were already eight years in the rear window and Lavin felt Irish athletics was finding a whole new plain as she watched her teammates take on the continent’s best at the Olympiastadion. Now, with the hurdles scheduled much earlier at next week’s Europeans in Rome, she is hoping to get Ireland up and running and go even further herself.