JODIE’S GREAT EXPECTATIONS ARRIVE AGAIN
Spectacular first Major joy for Georgia who dedicates the victory to her grandad CYCLING
-17 G Hall 67 68 69 67 -15 P Phatlum (Tha) 67 67 69 70 -13 SY Ryu (Kor) 69 69 67 70 -9 A Jutanugarn (Tha) 71 70 69 69, M Higa (Jpn) 66 69 71 73, SY Kim (Kor) 71 71 71 66 C Ciganda (Spa) 69 73 68 70, Y Liu (Chn) 69 72 68 71, S Feng (Chn) 71 71 69 69 M Lee (Aus) 65 70 71 75 JE Lee (Kor) 73 70 71 68, T Suwannapura (Tha) 72 71 67 72, L Ko (Nzl) 68 71 70 73, BM Henderson (Can) 69 70 69 74 S Oh (Aus) 73 70 72 68, T Lux (Tai) 67 69 73 74, B Altomare (USA) 70 70 70 73, SH Park (Kor) 67 70 69 77, JM Green (USA) 74 69 73 67 JODIE WILLIAMS was born with a winning habit until she stopped to think about it.
For five years she won every race she ran – 151 in all. Then she graduated to the senior ranks and the weight of expectation helped to break her.
“When I was younger everything just happened for me,” she admitted on arrival at the European Championships.
“I never learnt what struggles were.
“I kept winning and assumed that was how it would continue.
“It was a big discovery for me that things don’t just happen. I had to learn what rock-bottom looked like to gain an appreciation of how hard you have to work to get to the top.”
Britain has high hopes of sprint glory here, with Dina Asher-Smith (below) ranked No.1 for both women’s distances ahead of world champion Dafne Schippers.
Williams might not get too much of a mention.
But the 24-year-old, herself a world champion at youth and junior levels before being driven to the verge of quitting, comes to Germany having won perhaps her biggest battle of all. “Not so long ago track was entirely my identity,” she said.
“Every time I took a beating on the track I took it as a personal attack on me as a human being.
“It’s no secret I’ve had my injury struggles but actually it’s been more of a mental battle.
“When I left the juniors everyone just assumed I would win and that really took its toll.” thinking when I went off this morning, ‘I’ve just left Albie for this’. “I had mum guilt, he wasn’t very happy, he didn’t sleep very well. “And I thought, ‘I do not want to leave him for nothing, I want to take a medal home so he’s smiling’.” She added: “I was up five times last night – and he didn’t fall asleep until 9pm. “But you get used to it. I do not even feel like I’ve had a lack of sleep any more – I just come in and get on with it.”