Don’t let any athlete tell you they are not superstitious. Sock colour doesn’t matter? Oh yes. Forgot the lucky hat? Uh oh.
Sarah Lavin is smiling at that notion because there is one thing which would satisfy all her superstitions right now. She’ll find out soon enough.
There’s always been some sense of destiny about her chosen event, the 100 metres hurdles, given Lavin was born on the same day as Derval O’Rourke, 13 years later. As a junior, she broke O’Rourke’s records, indoors and out, the assumption being she’d someday challenge her senior record too, the 12.65 seconds O’Rourke clocked when winning silver at the 2010 European Championships in Barcelona. Back-to-back, remember.
That will be 13 years ago next month, Lavin still eying that time come next month’s World Championships in Budapest. Her superstition is 13 being her lucky number in this instance.
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“Yeah, there’s 13 years to the day between Derval and I, and it’s 13 years now since she set that record,” she says. “So that would satisfy all my superstitions, if I guess, if we could get our hands on it this year. But God, she’s made it hard, it’s definitely no easy task.”
The joint reference is her coach Noelle Morrissey, who first took Lavin under her wing as a seven-year-old in Limerick. The journey hasn’t always been steady or smooth, although now 29 this season has already been her best to date; Lavin has a first senior medal to prove it.
That was won last month, bronze at the European Games in Poland, although Lavin only got to receive the medal at a lunch in Dublin this week, organised by Team Ireland sponsors Permanent TSB. Those Games comprised of three divisions in the European Athletics Team Championships, and Lavin first won division three in 12.82 seconds.
No woman in division two ran faster, then three days later, in division one, Pia Skrzyszowska from Poland won in 12.77, Nadine Visser of the Netherlands was second in 12.81, France’s Laeticia Bapté third, also in 12.82. So they went into the thousands, and Lavin was .001 faster.
Just over a week later, on wet conditions at the Stockholm Diamond League, Lavin clocked a lifetime best 12.73, finishing second, and despite hitting the last hurdle that was well inside the automatic qualifying time of 12.77 for the Paris Olympics, one day after that window opened.
“For Tokyo, I think I was the last Irish athlete to qualify, it went right down to the wire, so to get it so early is great, and not something I take for granted. I’ve just really tried to take the opportunities, and trying to get putting out the 12.7s, and then hopefully get down to 12.6, maybe then 12.5.
“I’ve run my top three times of my career this month, in July, but at the same time we’ve kept the pedal on the hard training, because it’s all about peaking at Budapest. Someone once said, ‘you’re only as good as your last race’, but really it’s your next race, which is why support like this from Permanent TSB is so important.
“With the European Games as well it wasn’t a token medal, athletes opting out, these were the very best athletes in Europe. So things worked out, and yeah, you might say with a little help.”
That reference isn’t to any superstition, only something far more powerful still. Lavin has spoken before about the tragic death of her boyfriend, the Waterford rally driver Craig Breen, who sustained fatal injuries during a practice run at an event in Croatia, on April 13th. He was 33 years old. Just two months, before Breen had finished second in the Swedish Rally after one of the drives of his life.
Lavin was unquestionably inspired by Breen during her race in Stockholm, still lives off his inspiration every day, and there’s no denying her target now is a place in that World Championship final – having made the final at her last three championships, the World Indoors, and European Championships indoors and out.
Next stop on that road to Budapest is Santry this weekend. Lavin is racing in both the 100m flat and 100m hurdles at the National Track and Field Championships, before one last tune-up race in Bern on August 4th.
There is considerable doubt whether Tobi Amusan will be in Budapest to defend her title, the 26 year-old Nigerian running a world record of 12.12 seconds to win in Oregon last year. She is temporarily suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) with a whereabouts violation for three missed drug tests.
The AIU confirmed the charge last week, three days after Amusan won the Silesia Diamond League in Poland in 12.34, and her case will be decided by a tribunal of three arbitrators before the World Championships begin.
“Of course it’s disappointing to think the world record holder could miss three tests,” says Lavin, “and obviously we have to wait for due process
“Even Sunday evening, arriving home from Monaco, I was tested. We’re lucky we have one of the best anti-doping in the world. We don’t know, and won’t know until the full review is done.
[ Sarah Lavin continues to reach new heights in athletics despite life hurdlesOpens in new window ]
“But I definitely think athletics is in a better place, and it’s quite encouraging that they’re not protecting big names. For me, I’m living my dream, to make major global finals, and do I believe it is possible.
“I took up athletes when I was seven, begging my parents to let me start, and it’s no coincidence that was 2001, the year after Sonia won her medal in Sydney. I remember the influence that had on me, and I think Paris will be an Olympics that really hits home on a lot of Irish people and a lot of Irish kids. You want to give kids that dream and being able to live it, which is the way I feel anyway.
“I know I’ll need to run an Irish record in Budapest if I want to be competitive, I would possibly need to run 12.5 to make the final, when 12.5 would have won a medal in Tokyo. That’s how strong the event is at the moment.
“And of course, it’s nice to be getting close to Derval’s record. But I still have to get it. It’s still Derval’s right now, but I’d love to get it this year, and see where I sit this year, a year out from Paris.
“If you’re looking at the Olympic final, no Irish woman has made a sprint final at the Olympics, in any event. We’re looking at Rhasidat [Adeleke] now as well, but you want to be that first person, so why not? It’s far more reachable now that it was this time last year.”
