The Dublin native and business student is fulfilling a dream she's had since she was a little girl: to compete at the Olympic Games.
It was a dream that was born out on the water around Howth and when she watched Annalise Murphy compete at the 2012 Olympics in London when she was just eight years old.
Although it's her first Olympic games, she's already ranked 12th in the world and is the under 21 world champion in her discipline - and is hoping to use her youth to her advantage, coming in as "the underdog."
So who is Eve McMahon, the Irish sailing prodigy who will represent Ireland at the Paris 2024 Olympics?
Growing up in a sailing family
Eve comes from a family of sailors and is the youngest of three. She followed in the footsteps of her two older brothers Ewan and Jamie, aged 25 and 21, and started summer sailing courses in Howth Yacht Club at the age of just seven.
Her earliest memories of sailing are around Howth with her family as a child. She told Evoke: "We have a family yacht in Howth Yacht Club and we just pottered around in an Optimist [a single-handed sailing dinghy]. My brothers would put me in the front and they'd steer around.
"Just being out in the water, it's an amazing feeling just being with nature, it's just an amazing laugh and a sense of freedom almost."
Making her Olympic debut at 20 years old, she's still very young and thinks it'll work to her advantage, saying: 'I think I'm going in as the underdog. I've raced with these senior girls for a while. I'm very good friends with them now. I have a huge amount of respect for them. I hope they're the same for me. I feel like I'm going in as an underdog... I'm going to use it to my advantage for sure.'
Eve and her brother Jamie McMahon at a 2019 event in Crosshaven, Cork. (RollingNews.ie)
University life
As well as being an athlete, Eve is a student at University College Dublin studying Commerce International - Business and Spanish - and has just finished her second-year exams, She is on the UCD Elite Sport Ad Astra scholarship program which she says has given her "lots of flexibility."
While her fellow UCD students are doing J1s, summer jobs and holidays, Eve doesn't feel she's missing out as the Olympics is her dream.
"It's a different life," says Eve. "These experiences are just once in a lifetime, what people dream of, and there's been a lot of hard work put into it. I'm just really looking forward to just enjoying the experience now."
What is her event?
Eve's event is the women's single-handed dinghy event, the Laser Radial ILCA 6, which takes place over six days from August 1 to 6 in Marseille, in the south of France, where the Olympic sailing events of Paris 2024 will take place.
She explained: "Our event is six days long. We do two races a day. For the Olympic Games, it's five days long. We have two reserve days left over in case we don't get racing on one of those days if there's no wind or too much wind.
"We're on the start line with about 40 other boats and our races are about 45 to 50 minutes long."
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A day in the life of training
Eve is currently out at an Olympic training camp in Marseille and while a lot of her training is focused on the water, she also incorporates cycling and gym strength to improve her aerobic endurance and core strength for her event.
Describing a day in her life, she said: "We either start our day with a gym session or a cycle and we do a lot of gym strength because there's a lot of load with the boat, a lot of load on our backs and we keep our core nice and strong to prevent any injury.
"Then we go out in the water for three to three-and-a-half hours, depending on the conditions. I train with the Danish Olympic team, so I'm with a very, very strong team. I'm training with Anne-Marie Rindom. She won gold in Tokyo, so I'm very grateful to be on their team."
The Olympic dream
The dream of competing at the Olympics first began as she watched Irish sailor Annalise Murphy take part in the 2012 London Olympics, when she was eight years old, saying: "It’s been a dream since I was a little girl."
She said: "I was going to say I'm lucky, but there's been a huge amount of hard work put into it and I'm just really looking forward to it. It's something that I've dreamed of since I was a little girl and I'm really proud. I'm proud to make my family proud as well. Yeah, I'm just really looking forward to the games now."
She continued: "I've always said I really want to experience that feeling. I want to race with the best and I want to hopefully be one of the best one day."
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Female role models in sport
Eve named Annalise Murphy and Sonia O'Sullivan as "huge inspirations" for her, both athletes that she's since met and trained with.
And now going to the Olympics herself, she hopes to inspire young girls to take up sport - but is also laser-focused on making her own mark in sailing.
She said: "I'm just really looking forward to kind of making my own footsteps and making my own marks in sport. I think women in sport is, is a huge thing and I really, I'm hoping to inspire the younger females into, into sailing and other sports.
"But at the moment I'm just trying to do my best as well and just hopefully now just put in the hard work for the games and see where that gets me."
Eve's support system
She credits her family as being her closest support system as she heads into the Olympics, including her mum and dad and her two older brothers.
Eve said: "They've been with me through thick and thin. When things are going great, they're there. But when things are at the lowest, they're by my side, always at the end of the phone call.
"They understand me through absolutely everything, every emotion. So I have a huge amount of respect and I'm very grateful for them to be there and hopefully make them proud."
* This article was originally published on Evoke.ie.
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