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Dina Asher-Smith faces her toughest challenge of the summer in the 200m in Birmingham.
Dina Asher-Smith faces her toughest challenge of the summer in the 200m in Birmingham. Photograph: Stephen Pond - British Athletics/Getty Images
Dina Asher-Smith faces her toughest challenge of the summer in the 200m in Birmingham. Photograph: Stephen Pond - British Athletics/Getty Images

Dina Asher-Smith discovers role-model status and targets bigger tests

This article is more than 5 years old
Sprinter faces toughest test this summer against the double world silver medallist Marie-Josée Ta Lou in Birmingham

One small measure of how Dina Asher-Smith has catapulted into the mainstream came at her local Costa on Friday morning, when she was given a coffee on the house. “The lady was saying: ‘You come in here for six months and we chat about everything but you never mentioned you were an athlete!’” says Asher-Smith, smiling. “There has been so much interest since the European Championships, which is very humbling, especially from people who wouldn’t typically engage with the sport.”

The 22-year-old estimates she has given 45 media interviews since arriving back from Berlin on Monday with three gold medals around her neck. There have also been plenty of selfies with fans as well as “a lot of love on social media”, including from global stars such as the grime singer Stormzy. But something else has twigged too. An understanding that she has begun to transcend her sport. “Lots of people have been referring to me as a role model which I still find very odd. But at the same time I am rolling with it, because I do have a social responsibility to make sure young people have a positive person to look up to.”

Certainly more people want a piece of her now – and that includes her sprint rivals. For when she returns to the track in a red-hot 200m at the Birmingham Diamond League on Saturday the world’s best sprinters will be desperate to claim her scalp. “The field is more like an Olympic final,” she says. “But that is what I love about female sprinters, we always turn up and give our A-game and there isn’t much ducking and diving.”

Her biggest challenge will surely come from the world 400m Olympic and world champion Shaunae Miller-Uibo, who beat her over 200m in the Commonwealth Games in April. As she admits: “It is going to take more than a perfect race to take Shaunae down. She has run 48.9 for the 400m which is out of this world – she is so insanely talented.”

But there are several other dangers lurking in the field, including the 100m and 200m world silver medallist Marie-Josée Ta Lou, Shericka Jackson – who beat Asher-Smith into bronze at the Commonwealths – and the reigning world 200m champion Dafne Schippers. However Asher-Smith is determined to lay down a marker before next year’s world championships in Doha and the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

“I am well aware the Europeans didn’t include the best sprinters or the best sprinting nations in the world,” she says. “That is why I am telling everybody to relax and chill out. My times are good but you don’t know how it is going to translate at world-level competitions.”

After Birmingham, Asher-Smith plans to compete over 200m at the Zurich Diamond League and Continental Cup in Jamaica – before finally letting herself go. “I have quite a long off-season since we have Doha quite late next year. I am going to sleep lots – and eat lots and lots of bad food.”

Dina Asher-Smith winning gold at the women’s 200m final in Berlin. Photograph: Stephen Pond/Getty Images

While Asher-Smith will surely get the biggest cheer of the day, the most exciting race is likely to be a stacked men’s 100m which features the world 60m record holder Christian Coleman and the fastest man in the world in 2018, Noah Lyles, going up against the best of the British talent, including Zharnel Hughes and Reece Prescod.

When the season is over Hughes, who won the European 100m title last week, intends to go scuba diving and swim with sharks. But it is clear that he expects plenty of blood in the water in Birmingham too. “These guys are going to be coming here to take me down,” he says. “Being European champion puts a target on my back but great competitors like this also equal great times.”

Coleman, meanwhile, intends to make a statement having had an interrupted season after smashing the 20-year-old world indoor 60m record in February. “I have a lot to prove,” he says. “Not only to other people, but to myself, that I’m the best in the world. But I don’t know of many people that can take almost two months off of not being able to train fully then come back and go up against the best guys in the world. I don’t think there’s anybody out there that can beat me.”

Many eyes will also be on the local lad Matt Hudson-Smith who is hoping to break Iwan Thomas’s 21-year-old British 400m record of 44.36sec. Hudson-Smith should be helped by the presence of Botswanan Isaac Makwala and the American Fred Kerley but he says he very nearly gave up athletics last year. “I was pretty close to quitting and I did quit at one point. I talked to my strength and conditioning coach and he said: ‘You don’t want to be that person who everyone says: ‘He could’ve have been.’ So I packed my bags, I went to America and it was the best decision I ever made.

“I was so spoilt it was a joke. If I was hungry, I went to my nan’s, if my nan wasn’t in, I know for a fact my nan’s friend would feed me. Now I have to cook for myself. Now I have to do everything for myself. And my coach, Lance Brauman, says I have grown up.”

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Kelly Holmes’s British 1000m record of 2min 32.55sec could also be under threat with Laura Muir – who won 1500m European gold last Sunday – targeting another national record. “As long as the conditions are good, I feel like I am on target to go for it,” she says.

But, as has been the case for much of the past week, all eyes will be on Asher-Smith as she sets out on the path of turning European success into global domination. “The fact I am at home will also make it 10 times as intense,” she admits. “I am under no illusions about what is coming. But I am not going to put on a bad performance in front of a home crowd.”

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