DINA IS A KILLER... SHE’LL SMILE THEN TAKE YOU DOWN
TO Darren Campbell, the smile is the giveaway. To many on the outside it typifies the perceived wisdom that Dina Asher-Smith fits that girl-next-door mould, but to the former British sprinter it represents something else.
‘She smiles when she is ready,’ he tells Sportsmail. ‘And when she is ready don’t think she isn’t willing to do whatever she can to beat you — that girl is a killer on the track.’
Campbell has a memory about a woman who today, with gold and silver medals around her neck, stands unquestionably as the leading lady of British sport.
‘It was at King’s College a few years back,’ he says. ‘I had to give a talk there and Dina was talking in front of a room full of people as well. She was at that college and winning medals all over the place, so it was normal that they wanted her to talk. She was a bit nervous, though. But it’s funny, just like when she is competing, she can deliver when it is time to shine.
‘She does this little smile, gets up there and does really great. It’s basically what she does in every race. She gets nervous like all of us do, but when itt is time to shine, she willill smile and then take youu down. Let me tell you, she always wants to beat the other person.’
Campbell, Britain’s last sprint medallist before Asher- Smith, has been one of the influential figures in thee life of a 23-year-old whose sporting and commercial potential is rocketing less than a year out from the Olympics.
Sportsmail detailed in the wake of her European Championships hat-trick last year that she had once, as a track-suited 12-year-old, posed with Campbell’s Olympic relay gold medal. When he asked if she wanted to wear it, AsherSmith’s mother, Julie, intervened and told her to wear one only when she won one. Well, now she has her own and can wear it with pride.
Campbell adds. ‘Dina can handle pressure — she grows in it, lives for it. She always did. I like thinking about that story with the medal.
‘It came about when her mum sent a message to the late Todd Bennett, my old business partner, about our school- fundraising initiative. She was probably our first grant and that is why I met her and she had the photo.
‘We have stayed in touch ever since. Sometimes you meet someone who is a like-minded soul and that is what it is with Dina and me. When I went on the track, I wanted to win so bad, to crush everyone else. Dina is a lovely girl, so nice, so fun, so interesting — but she wants to crush anyone else in a lane. She has serious drive.’
That drive and the talent have been obvious for years to those in Asher-Smith’s circle.
The stories are increasingly well known in the wake of her Berlin breakthrough last year. As a toddler she once outran her uncle and ran straight into a pond. As an eightyear-old she immediately caught the attention of her long-standing coach John Blackie with her ‘springy’ legs. As a 13-year-old she set an age-group world record in the 300m and by 2014 she was the European junior champion for 200m and the world junior gold medallist in the 100m.
British Athletics development manager Jo Jennings, the former Commonwealth Games high-jump silver medallist, met Asher-Smith when shesh was 14. JenJennings recalls: ‘ The stostory I go back to was thOd disqualified for a false the European Youth Olympics — she got start on her first British race. She got so uupset, so devastated, tthat, in an interesting wway, you knew she wouwould be a top talent.’ BlaBlackie, Asher- Smith’s lifelong coach, has been key to her rise.
When she was coming through it was externally suggested she employ a bigger-name coach. She rejected those in favour of her old mentor from Blackheath and Bromley Harriers. He gives the orders, she follows them, and in 15 years their only rows have centred on race execution errors.
‘Her focus will not be affected one bit by this success,’ says Campbell. In Doha that focus extended to a media blackout and even a curious desire for her Blackheath club to direct all media enquiries to her management company. A trifle unnecessary, perhaps, but her justification has been a need to control expectations.
That will be far harder after this trip to the desert. As Lord Coe, the IAAF president put it yesterday, she ‘will be the poster child of the next Olympics’. And possibly a champion after them too.