'I hope to keep Craig close to me for the next few days' – Irish ...

Lavin and Shane Lowry were today announced as the flagbearers for Ireland in the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on the Seine tonight.

Rally driver Breen died tragically last year after he sustained fatal injuries during a freak accident in Croatia. Months later, Lavin said in an interview that her heart was broken.

An emotional Lavin said today she will keep Breen’s memory with her as she gears up to compete in her second Olympics after a difficult few years.

“I’m running for a lot. And I hope to keep Craig close to me for the next few days as always,” Lavin said today at the Irish Cultural Centre in Paris before describing how different this time is to Tokyo three years ago. “It had been incredibly difficult from a performance perspective going into Tokyo. I’d broken 13 seconds once and this time round I think I’ve qualified 10 times in the last 12 months for this Games. I was the last person on the plane the last time round, I think I was the first from the athletics side this time.”

Lavin will compete in the 100m hurdles with the heats taking place at the Stade de France on Wednesday, August 7. Lowry will play with Rory McIlroy at Le Golf National from Thursday, August 1. Both described the “honour” of being asked to be flagbearers for Ireland.

“This is just simply an honour, and one of the greatest every Irish sportsperson could have. To carry the Irish flag on the centenary anniversary, it’s incredibly special,” Lavin said. “I don’t think there are many honours you could be given in life that can match up to this.”

Shane Lowry and Sarah Lavin on honour of being named flagbearers at tonight’s opening ceremony of the Olympic Games

This will also be Lowry’s second Olympics after he competed in Tokyo three years ago. Following his recent sixth-place finish at The Open – where his challenge unravelled in the third round at Royal Troon – he said he wanted to “redeem” himself at the Paris Olympics.

“As a golfer and a sportsperson I live day-to-day. Last week was the Open, it nearly went according to plan. Straight after that, it was in my head to go and redeem myself in a couple of weeks in Paris, but obviously I have today as well. It’s a really nice distraction to have. Don’t get me wrong, the first few days of this week were hard, I was a but sour, and you’re waking up in the morning wonder what you could have done differently last weekend.

“But the excitement that's around something like this, to be honest I'm looking forward to getting down to the Village now and seeing the excitement around the whole place and yeah, living it up for the next 24 hours. It will be cool.”

Both Lavin and Lowry said their first Olympic memories were of Sonia O’Sullivan competing for Ireland.

“I’m an incredibly proud Offaly man,” Lowry added. “We’ve got five athletes here this week from Offaly which is great. I’ve met a few of them, I know Grainne Walsh and I know her family pretty well so that’s my one goal over the next week is to go and watch her compete. Our friends are very good friends. I’m patriotic, I’m Irish but I’m Offaly as well. I love what I do and yeah I’m very excited.”

Lavin confirmed she got the news “a few weeks back” while Lowry tried to keep it as quiet as possible.

“I didn’t tell my Mum,” Lowry said. “It would have been in the Tullamore Tribune a couple of weeks ago if I did! I told a couple of people. Neil Manchip, our team manager here, he obviously knew. Some of my team knew, I kept it as quiet as I could. It’s a huge honour, something I’m very excited to be part of.”

“I was crying when I found out initially,” Lavin continued. “It doesn’t much to make my mom cry if I’m crying so. I think it's just an incredibly emotional day.”​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​