Sarah Lavin is no stranger to adversity, both on and off the track. It is one of the reasons she’s quick to acknowledge the reversal of fortunes she has suffered in the 100m hurdles is not the end of the world.Still, there’s no denying Lavin cut a lonely figure on the opening night of the European Championships after being eliminated in the heats. Despite running a season best of 13.07 seconds, she looked a world away from the 12.62 she clocked three years ago when finally breaking the Irish record which had stood to Derval O’Rourke since 2010.“It’s not life and death, I run and jump over stuff,” says Lavin. “But yeah, it’s been hard, really hard, because I care about this so much and it hurts so much not to deliver. It’s been a very turbulent couple of weeks, couple of months. A lot of different scenarios and things to overcome.”When the 32-year-old’s performances remained stalled earlier this year, she made the difficult decision to part ways with her long-time coach at Emerald AC in Limerick, Noelle Morrissey.Lavin spent some time working with sprint coach John Coghlan, who is based in Hong Kong and previously coached France’s Cyréna Samba-Mayela to silver in the 100m hurdles at the Paris Olympics. After nine weeks, Lavin felt the move wasn’t working out, so she returned home and has since been without a coach.“Noelle was coaching me for 25 years. It was a beautiful relationship and I don’t know how many seven-year-olds start off with a coach and get to two world finals and four Europeans. There’s always going to be a very special bond between us, something that can’t be replicated by potentially anything else in your life, and any other relationship.Sarah Lavin (second left) during the heats of the 100m hurdles at the European Athletics Championships on Monday. Photograph: Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images “It was a remarkably difficult decision for me to make. I felt that I had stagnated, and I hadn’t run a PB indoors since 2024. And I was faced with, ‘if you don’t do it in 2026’, you can’t make a change the year before the Olympics. I know I’ll have done everything, and I won’t just have maybe stayed comfortable or stayed safe. I’ve tried everything and opened every door possible.”The Limerick woman added: “I’m obviously a home bird and doing nine weeks (in Hong Kong), where maybe I only had one week of company for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If it was yielding me results, I could live with that a lot easier. To be living in a different time zone, that’s very difficult. John Coghlan is fantastic, a world class coach. He doesn’t need me to say that.“It’s not anything about a coach, or it’s not anything personal. With every decision you make, you just have to feel happy within yourself as an athlete and make the best decision for your heart so that you can live with it.“It’s just trying to find what can make me deliver the best possible performance for LA, in 2028, and to live with no regrets. The hardest thing is coming to a championship without a coach. But I’ve a remarkable team and I promise it’s not the end, far from it.”