No medal, but a gutsy fourth for Dina

DINA ASHER-SMITH came to the World Championships on a mission to merely reach the 200m final but will leave with a nagging feeling of what might have been after finishing fourth. Such a placing in 22.22sec was brilliantly impressive in her circumstances, but the kicker will come from knowing she surely would have won a medal had she avoided injury at the start of this year. Instead, the British record-holder, whose personal best stands at 22.07, had to watch as Dafne Schippers defended her title in 22.05, from Marie-Josee Ta Lou and Shaunae Miller-Uibo, who was just 0.07sec ahead of Asher-Smith. It left Asher-Smith as the fifth member of the underwhelming British contingent to finish fourth, but her personal tale is worthy of deep credit, considering she broke her foot in February and almost didn’t make it to the championships. She said: ‘I was coming down the home straight and I was thinking, “I didn’t know I was in that kind of shape”. And to see I have missed out on a medal by seven-hundredths, OK, in sprinting it is a lot, but when you have broken your

foot, it is not so much. I am quite frustrated but I am happy to run like this without hardly doing any training.’ While the 21-year-old broke her season’s best in each round, it was another frustrating night for the hosts. Lorraine Ugen let her medal chance slip away in a blitz of fouls in the long jump. The World Indoor bronze medallist leapt 6.72m to take fifth, but the frustration will come from the attempts where she failed to register. Brittney Reese of the USA took gold. Ugen said: ‘Throwing away so many jumps by fouling and not getting everything together is disappointing. My runway just wasn’t quite clicking.’ Robbie Grabarz qualified for tomorrow’s high jump final with a 2.31m clearance — 2cm greater than the leap that made him the Olympic bronze medallist in this stadium five years ago. He said: ‘A medal. That’s what I’m here for and anything else I will be gutted.’ Lynsey Sharp, meanwhile, will contest the 800m final after winning an appeal against her disqualification from the semi-final. She collided with Charlene Lipsey on the line, but was given a reprieve after a protest. Chris O’Hare reached tomorrow’s 1500m final after finishing fourth in his semi-final.