Lavin signed a new contract with Adidas for the new Olympic cycle a few weeks ago which ensures she can remain as a professional athlete. The 2024 World Indoor finalist will now target her third Olympic Games. Lavin received funding of €25,000 under the 2024 International Carding Scheme from Sport Ireland but she says Olympic dreams can’t be sustained on that level of funding without commercial earnings.
“I have re-signed with Adidas so LA here we come. Often after an Olympic cycle, people ask you are you going again? And sometimes it’s not always your choice.
“I remember as a kid watching Derval [O’Rourke] on The Late Late Show and she was talking about how little funding she got and that was 20 years ago,” said Lavin, who launched the Federation of Irish Sport 2024 Volunteers in Sport Awards.
“The highest level of carding is €40,000 in this country and for finishing fifth at a World Indoors you’re on €25,000. You can’t live off €25,000 a year without the commercial input and sponsors. Olympic dreams just can’t be fulfilled at that level. Some athletes don’t even have that.”
Lavin has become a regular finalist at major championships. At the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow in March, she finished fifth in the final of the 60m hurdles. She qualified for the final of the 100m hurdles at the European Championships in Rome in June but she hit the second hurdle and finished in seventh place.
At the Paris Olympics, she finished sixth in her semi-final and Lavin (30) believes her best years are still ahead of her.
“I take huge heart that Derval won a major medal at 33. OK, I’ve just turned 30. I also think given the fact that I didn’t have quite a straightforward career transitioning from a junior to senior, I get a lot of enjoyment out of simple things and if I had that perfect transition I might be slightly bored of it. I certainly am not. I relish every opportunity.
“I think just to have that boost [new contract] is really exciting. Obviously, I wanted to run quicker than 12.6 but I did run 12.6 twice and that is pretty quick on the grand scheme of things and [I was] fifth at the World Indoors this year, ran a PB five times indoors.
“I think heading into next year knowing that there’s a European Indoors, a World Indoors and a World Championships again, three majors. I’m determined.”
Lavin believes it would help greatly if her coach was able to work with her on a full-time basis in her bid to get to the next level. Noelle Morrissey receives the annual funding support of €10,000 from Athletics Ireland but Lavin believes it is inadequate.
“€10,000 is not sufficient to work the 20 hours of contact time that’s required to be a coach at the highest level, and that’s not including the planning of programmes, sessions, travelling,” Lavin added. “I know what I can do, Noelle and I, but we’re doing this on literally bare minimum of support for Noelle.
“In an ideal world, the dream would be that Noelle is a full-time coach. That contact time is really beneficial to us. We’re trying to push everything we can do from a training perspective but it comes down to simple things: time together.
“I fully believe we’re getting closer and closer. My consistency has been getting better and better and I just really want to deliver that major medal.”




