Dina in the mood for more scalps
ASHER-SMITH TO TAKE ON WORLD’S BEST TODAY
ONE small measure of how much ground Dina AsherSmith covered across five short sprints in Berlin is that she was given free coffee at her local train station yesterday.
That was her prime observation of how life has changed since her golden hattrick at the European Championships and the round of breakfast television appointments that came with it.
The attention has all been a little bemusing for the 22-year-old, who by her own admission still has far more important transformations to make — namely the step from an elite contender to a medallist at world and Olympic level.
She will take a close look at those she needs to pass at the Diamond League meet in Birmingham today, where she will face off in the 200m against all three of the women who beat her into fourth at the World Championships last year.
Of those, she crushed Dafne Schippers, the 2017 world champion, in the 100m, 200m and relay in Germany, but the additions of Marie- Josee Ta Lou of the Ivory Coast and Bahamian Shaunae MillerUibo make this a far deeper field than she faced in Berlin. Miller-Uibo, the Olympic 400m champion, comes in at the end of a season in which she beat Asher-Smith to Commonwealth Games gold, while Ta Lou is tied with the Brit at the top of the 100m world list. The lineup at the Alexander Stadium also includes Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson, ranked third in the world this year, and America’s Jenna Prandini, who is sixth.
Asher-Smith currently has the numerical edge on all of them with a world-leading 21.89sec for the 200m in 2018, but it would help in the run-up to the Doha World Championships next year and Tokyo 2020 if she can get in the habit of taking their scalps.
‘This field looks more like an Olympic final so I am really excited,’ Asher-Smith said. ‘It is going to take more than a perfect race to take Shaunee down.
‘She is a fantastically talented athlete, so insanely talented.
‘But I race these girls all the time, year in, year out. We kind of know whereabouts we are with each other. I am definitely well aware that Europeans didn’t include some of the best sprinters and best sprinting nations in the world so I am telling everyone to relax and chill out. The times were good but you don’t know how it is going to translate in global competitions.’
Her challenge today will be complicated by the fatigue of the past week of media appearances, with Asher-Smith broadly hinting that she might be below her Berlin level.
‘It is about performing to the best of my ability with what I have in the tank right now,’ she said. ‘If that comes with a good time or performance anywhere near what I did last week then I will be over the moon.
‘The past week has been nice. This morning my local Costa at my train station gave me 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”. That kind of reception and engagement has been really positive for the sport as well.’