“It’s a difficult one, and to be honest, I don’t have the answers. I don’t know how you would do it differently, but I think it just comes down to people being able to have a conversation and taking politics out of it and just looking at how we can make the sports as inclusive as they can be.”
The T34 classification in which Lambird competes is for athletes with cerebral palsy, and says they see it as competing against athletes that are most like them in terms of “competitive agent”.
However, they also say that it’s more important now than ever to have discussions about inclusivity in sport after world swimming’s governing body FINA banned transgender women from competing at an elite level, and more recently, the controversy surrounding the Manly Sea Eagles’ “everyone in league” jersey.
“It’s pretty disappointing to see those kinds of things [Manly controversy] because you’re taught in every sport that you’re supposed to be a role model, and you’re supposed to act in a way that people can look up to you, and that’s certainly not being a role model in my eyes,” Lambird says.
But Lambird also accepts that to move forward with difficult conversations around gender and sexuality in sport, everyone needs to be compassionate and patient.
“I think a lot of it is misunderstanding, so if we can hopefully share our stories, more people will come to understand what it means to be a gender diverse person in sport.”
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When Lambird takes to the track next week, they’ll be up against Olympic gold and silver medallists Hannah Cockroft and Kare Adenegan. But when the gun goes off, they want to enjoy the 18-or-so seconds it takes to cross the finish line.
“For me, I think the Commonwealth Games is perhaps even more special than Tokyo because it’s going to be the first time I have had my family cheering me on. I don’t get to see them very often, so I really just want to go out there and have some fun and show my family what I can do.”









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