Jodie finds life away from track
SPRINTER 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 break her.
“When I was younger everything just happened for me,” she said on the eve of the European Championships in Berlin.
“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 at the Olympic Stadium, with
Dina Asher-Smith from ALEX SPINK in Berlin ranked No.1 for both women’s distances ahead of world champion Dafne Schippers.
Williams, 24, 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 reached a point that I asked myself if I really wanted to continue. “Track is what we do but not who we are.
“I have learned the hard way the importance of having more than one passion in life.”