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Lorraine Lambert (born 29 September) is a British Paralympic shooter who was fifth in the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio. Lambert was chosen for the postponed 2020 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo in August 2021.

Life

Lambert was born in 1972 and she is from Milton, a suburb of Portsmouth. She joined a youth organisation called The Nautical Training Corps and that was where she learned to shoot and began to shoot competitively.

Lambert was working as a climbing instructor when she damaged her leg as the result of a fall while rock climbing in 1997. She had sixteen operations to try and fix the damage and reduce the pain in her leg. In 2005 she first tried to find a surgeon who was willing to amputate her leg so that she could improve her life. Her leg was removed in 2010. Lambert returned to competitive shooting when she took part in the "LimbPower Games" in 2010. The following year she entered competitions and won a gold medal at an event in Dubai.

Lambert went to Rio de Janeiro in 2016 to represent the UK in the Paralympics. She finished fifth in the women's 50 m Rifle (3 Positions) in the SH1 category at Rio in 2016. She came behind Veronika Vadovičová, but the gap had narrowed by the time Vadovičová took the gold medal in the 2017 Para Sport World Cup held in the UAE and Lambert was in the medals in the silver position. At the World Shooting Para Sport World Cup in 2019 she took the first British medal of the competition winning bronze in the women's R8 50 m rifle 3 positions SH1.

Lambert was chosen to represent the UK by shooting at the postponed 2020 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo. The other British women paralympic shooters chosen are pistol shooter Issy Bailey and Lesley Stewart. Each of the women in the UK team had been fitted with a designer bra. Lambert believed that this had improved her shooting and optical sensor readings have confirmed that. Competitive shooters are allowed to touch their guns with their hands but they are not allowed to let the gun touch their body. This is also important as shooters take care to avoid the movements caused by their heart beating to create a movement in the rifle. The designers created the new bra to minimise the chance of Lambert's breasts touching the gun.

Lambert came 15th in the R8 women's 50m competition at the 2020 Olympic games (in 2021), although she had wanted a medal. Her husband, Wayne, and her family were pleased anyway. She planned to take a year off.

References

1. "ParalympicsGB squad for Tokyo 2020". BBC Sport. Retrieved 17 July 2021.
2. ^ "Paralympian encourages more people to try shooting as she urges 'anything is possible'". "The News" Portsmouth's newspaper since 1877. Retrieved 21 June 2021.
3. ^ "Lorraine Lambert - Shooting | Paralympic Athlete Profile". International Paralympic Committee. Retrieved 21 June 2021.
4. ^ "Lorraine Lambert". Paralympics.org. Retrieved 21 June 2021.
5. "Q&A: Paralympic shooter Lorraine Lambert". Airgun Magazine. 27 January 2018. Retrieved 17 July 2021.
6. "Lambert takes Silver in UAE". Disability Shooting Great Britain. 23 February 2017. Retrieved 21 June 2021.
7. "Super Skelhon grabs World Cup silver". ParalympicsGB. 27 July 2019. Retrieved 17 July 2021.
8. "Lesley Stewart added to ParalympicsGB shooting team for Tokyo 2020". Paralympics.org.uk. 6 July 2021. Retrieved 17 July 2021.
9. ^ "'They're not treating us as small men': Team GB women get the right bras". the Guardian. 18 June 2021. Retrieved 21 June 2021.
10. Lemmer, Richard (September 2021). "Tokyo Paralympics 2020: Portsmouth shooting ace Lorraine Lambert returns to proud friends and family in the city". The News (Portsmouth). Retrieved 4 February 2023.

• 1972 births
• Living people
• British female sport shooters
• Sportspeople from Portsmouth
• Shooters at the 2016 Summer Paralympics
• British amputees
• Shooters at the 2020 Summer Paralympics
• Paralympic shooters for Great Britain