Britain’s fastest woman does not have many gaps on her CV but Dina Asher-Smith still has an Olympic itch to scratch.
The Orpington flyer is a world, European and Commonwealth gold medallist but injury shattered her dreams of following that up on the biggest stage in Tokyo three years ago.
Asher-Smith’s tearful television interview after she failed to make the 100m final, in which she revealed a hamstring tear and pulled out of the 200m, only endeared her further to a nation desperate to witness top level sprinting success.
Her trademark resilience came to the fore as she later formed part of the quartet which won 4x100m bronze, ensuring she did not leave Tokyo empty-handed.
Now based in Texas, she has her eyes on bigger prizes this time around.
Dina Asher-Smith and London 2012
Born in Orpington to parents Julie and Winston in December 1995, Asher-Smith was a high achiever on and off the track from a young age.
Under the guidance of John Blackie at Blackheath and Bromley Athletics Club, she clocked a world age best over 300m (39.16s) at 13 and went on to achieve 9 A*s and two As in her GCSEs. Two years later, successful A-Levels saw her offered a place by King’s College. Aptly, given what she would go on to achieve, she studied history.
Asher-Smith’s late teens also coincided with an Olympics on her doorstep and she was determined to be part of it.
Working as a bag carrier during the Games, including on that famous Super Saturday night on August 4, lit a fire under Asher-Smith. Four years later, she was competing on the biggest stage in Rio.
Dina Asher-Smith record-breaker
Asher-Smith first broke the national 100m record in May 2015, clocking 11.02s, and it was not long before she became the first Brit to go under the 11-second barrier.
She finished fifth in the 200m on her Olympic debut, taking home bronze in the 4x100m in a British record time, and went from strength to strength in the years that followed.
She achieved a clean sweep at the 2018 European Championships – winning gold in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m – and etched her name into folklore by becoming the first British female sprinter to become a world champion in Doha the following year over 200m.
Asher-Smith scorched home in 21.88s – another national record, and one which still stands.
“Normally I am so chatty and full of energy, but I am lost for words,” she said in the aftermath. “Everybody keeps saying world champion, world title, but it hasn’t sunk in and honestly I don’t think it ever will.
“I have dreamed of this and now it’s real. I wasn’t the fastest when I was younger, but I worked so hard with my coach John (Blackie). That we’re champions together means so much to me.”
Tokyo, Texas and Top Golf
Those achievements meant Asher-Smith travelled to the delayed Tokyo Games as one of Team GB’s poster girls, all of which made her injury so ill-timed and the aftermath so painful.
She bounced back with a strong performance at the 2022 World Championships in Eugene, earning 200m bronze and coming within a whisker of matching it in the 100m, and has been given a fresh lease of life since moving to Texas in October 2023.
It meant the end of a 19-year bond with Blackie, with Asher-Smith now coached by Edrick “Flo” Floréal, but the relocation has allowed her to enjoy a more ‘normal’ lifestyle.
“I’ve just been going for walks, playing mini golf and Top Golf, and just doing stuff that I wouldn’t necessarily feel super comfortable doing in the UK because I know that my job would be a topic of conversation,” she told The Guardian.
“Being able to switch off has been one of the best things.”
For Tom Daley and his love of knitting, read pottery for Asher-Smith. Crafting mugs as part of her new hobby has made up part of that ‘switching off’ for an athlete who has long had more strings to her bow than sprinting.
She appeared alongside the likes of Stormzy and Raheem Sterling in the music video for ‘Black’ by rapper Dave in 2019 and has modelled on the Paris catwalk at the city’s fashion week.
But her focus now lies no further than strutting her stuff on the track back in the French capital, with Asher-Smith admitting she has been thinking about the Olympics ‘every single day’.
Competition remains fierce in a stacked field but Kent’s golden girl heads across the Channel determined to make this a summer to remember.
Sportsbeat 2024