Dobbin races against time with four jobs
Britain’s rising sprinter tells Ben Bloom how the Athletics World Cup gave her a dilemma
If the manager of Loughborough University’s reception happens to be reading this, Beth Dobbin has something to tell you: sorry, but she is not coming into work today. Dobbin is not usually a skiver. Quite the opposite, in fact, as someone who juggles four jobs and works seven days a week throughout the winter. It is just that she never expected to be otherwise occupied this weekend.
At the start of the season, Dobbin had filled in her diary with all her likely races for the summer. The main focus for this time of year was the Inter-counties Championships in Manchester. Then everything changed at the start of this month when the part-time receptionist, security guard, data inputter and school assistant shocked her professional rivals to win the British 200metres title.
It was a victory that means she will unexpectedly spend the next few weekends representing Great Britain at the inaugural Athletics World Cup, London Anniversary Games and then European Championships. She just needs to convince her bosses to give her some time off. “I was supposed to be at work this Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday,” she says. “I’ve managed to get three of those days off, but I haven’t had much luck with Saturday. I’ll probably just be a rebel and say I’m not coming in. It’s a once in a lifetime thing to compete at the World Cup so I’ll probably just not go in. I’m looking at my diary and it’s chocka because I didn’t expect this. I’ve got myself in a real mess.”
By her own admission, Dobbin never had much success as a junior sprinter. A major epileptic seizure in her early teenage years temporarily wiped her memory and removed her ability to walk and talk for a number of weeks.
With her epilepsy now under control without the need for medication, she says she has “been playing catch-up” until this extraordinary breakthrough summer at the age of 24.
It began with a huge personal best to break the 34-year-old Scottish 200m record at a UK Women’s League meet at the start of June, before she eased down for another record time in the British Championship heats. In the final she shattered her best again to claim the national title in 22.59 seconds – a mark that put her up to eighth on the British all-time list.
Now things step up another gear. This weekend Dobbin will enter a vastly different realm at London’s Olympic Stadium, when she
competes internationally for the first time in her life, sharing the start line with world medallists Jenna Prandini, of the US, and Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson.
She has never set foot inside the country’s biggest athletics stadium. “I’ve never raced there and never watched there,” says Dobbin, whose father Jim played football for Celtic and then Doncaster Rovers, in the town where she was born and raised. “I want the first moment to be when I step out on to the track for my race. I think that will make it a bit more special.”
Next week, professional rivals will nod to her on the way into Loughborough University’s High Performance Athletics Centre, where she sits on reception, but Dobbin will have to wait until the end of her shift to prepare for the European Championships.
“It is weird because someone like Reece Prescod is a British [100m] champion and I’m British champion, but he’s coming in to train and I’m there still working,” she says. “Hopefully next year that can be me getting to live the full-time athlete lifestyle. This is all new to me. I don’t really know how to do it.”