Team GB win battle of the sexes . . . twice
We scoop gold in pioneering mixed- gender relays – but it’s despair for our 100m star Dina
THE best of Britain’s sportsmen and women joined forces yesterday to win Olympic glory.
Adam Peaty and James Guy claimed their second Tokyo gold medals, leading a world record-breaking quartet to victory in the first mixed swimming relay.
Afterwards, Peaty marked the jubilant mood by saying that a new-found ‘belief’ in themselves had set the swimmers on a winning streak.
Nor did it stop in the pool. There was further glory when Jess Learmonth, Jonny Brownlee, Georgia Taylor-Brown and Alex Yee won gold in the inaugural mixed triathlon relay.
With a bronze for 22-year-old Emma Wilson, making her Olympic debut in the women’s windsurfing event, Great Britain looked to be heading for another Super Saturday.
But Dina Asher-Smith, the poster girl of British athletics, crashed out of the 100m, failing to reach the much-anticipated final.
Afterwards the 25-year-old announced that she was withdrawing from the 200m, blaming a hamstring i njury she picked up three weeks ago that was more troubling than previously disclosed.
Her dream of becoming Britain’s first female sprint medallist at an Olympics since 1960 is now on hold until Paris 2024. Elimination in the 100m semi- final – she ran 11.05 and finished third – was the only downcast moment in another impressive day for Team GB, which r e ma i n s in sixth place in the medals table.
In the pool, Britain’s golden generation of talent continued their glorious run. In t he mixed relay teams comprise two women and two men, wi t h e a c h o f the four swimmers allocated to one of four t r a di t i o nal medley s t r o kes – backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly and freestyle.
Peaty and Guy, along with Kathleen Dawson and Anna Hopkin, finished the 4x100m in a world-record time of three minutes 37.58 seconds, with China taking silver and Australia bronze. It was Britain’s fourth swimming gold in Tokyo – its best total since 1908.
‘One word has changed the whole British team – belief,’ said Peaty, who also won gold in the 100m breaststroke.
‘We believe we can win, we believe we can get world records. If you have belief, you can build everything around that and we showed that here.’
He added: ‘British swimming has completely flipped, it’s incredible, and it’s down to people back home finding the one per cent improvements.
‘Hopefully, for all those kids back home who haven’t had access to pools [during lockdown], this gives t hem t he kickstart t hey need, because there’s no point doing any of this if we’re not inspiring people.
‘ That’s what the Olympics are about, right, to do better and to chase dreams.’ Guy was also in the 4x200m freestyle relay team that won gold earlier in the week, and Tom Dea n earned the other in the men’s 200m freestyle. The International Olympic Committee pledged t o make this the ‘ most gender equal’ Games. It means as well as i ntro- ducing events such as skateboarding, sport climbing and BMX freestyle, nine new mixedgender disciplines were added to seven current Olympic sports. The first gold came early on Saturday as GB won the first-ever Olympic triathlon mixed relay with Brownlee breaking away from the pack and Taylor-Brown and Yee maintaining the advantage to secure Britain’s third triathlon medal of the week. ‘The Olympics? I’ve completed it,’ said 31- year- old Brownlee, who claimed bronze at London 2012 and silver at Rio 2016. ‘It feels absolutely amazing. It’s my third Olympics and I finally walk away with gold.’ Britain finished 14 seconds ahead of the United States while France claimed the bronze medal. ‘I can’t believe it. I was slightly nervous being in a team of Olympic medallists and I’m just so glad we executed a brilliant race,’ said 33year-old Learmonth.
Meanwhile, after her 100m failure, Asher- Smith revealed that she has been battling a torn hamstring: ‘It broke my heart because I am a competitor. It is the Olympics but there are plenty of other championships for me to come and kill.’
Diagnosed after the British Championships on June 26, she spent time on crutches and was unable to train in spikes until ten days ago.
She said: ‘I was told [at the British Championships] that it was a rupture so that my hamstring and tendon were no longer attached and I would need surgery, and it would be three or four months until I walk again and then a year to sprinting.
‘That day I was in floods of tears. That was a difficult 48-72 hours for me. It was insane. At that point I had a statement written, I probably still have it on my phone, ready to go out just before selection. I wasn’t going to be selected.
‘I decided to go to the best sports doctors in the world in Germany to get an opinion on what kind of surgery I should have, whether if there was some hamstring left or whether I should have a plastic or metal attachment.
‘I had a call from the doctor in Germany saying, “I’ve looked at your scans and you need to get here because, while you have torn it, I don’t think it’s a rupture and if we get on it and push there’s a chance you could be on the line in Tokyo.” ’
Breaking down in tears, she added: ‘The easiest thing would have been to turn around and say I’m not going to get on the plane – that would have saved my pride, it would have saved everything. But at the end of the day I’m an incredibly talented sprinter and I know what kind of calibre of athlete I am.
‘I’ve been dreaming about this for so long. It was just unless I couldn’t stand or do anything on that leg. It wasn’t an option for me to give up because this is my life.’
BBC Olympics presenter Alex Scott declared yesterday she was ‘working class and proud’ after a former Minister criticised her London accent.
The ex-England footballer came under fire from Lord Jones of Birmingham, the crossbench peer, who said she was spoiling coverage of the Games with her ‘very noticeable inability to pronounce her Gs at the end of a word’.
Calling himself Lord Digby Jones, he tweeted: ‘Enough! I can’t stand it anymore! Competitors are NOT taking part, Alex, in the fencin, rowin, boxin, kayakin, weightliftin & swimmin... Can’t someone give these people elocution lessons?... On behalf of the English Language... Help!’
Piers Morgan leapt to the pundit’s defence, calling Lord Jones’s outburst i n s u f f e r a b l y p o mpou s and patronising.
Stephen Fry joined in the criticism, pointing out: ‘ Since we’re being picky, you are not “Lord Digby Jones”, you are “Digby, Lord
Jones”. There’s a world of difference. But however you’re titled, you disgrace the upper house with your misplaced snobbery.’
And Ms Scott, awarded an MBE in 2017, hit back: ‘I’m from a workingclass family in East London, Poplar, Tower Hamlets & I am PROUD.
‘ Proud of the young girl who overcame obstacles, and proud of my accent! It’s me, it’s my journey, my grit.’ She went on to urge young children ‘who may not have a certain kind of privilege in life’ to never allow judgments on class, accent or appearance t o hold them back and added: ‘Use your history to write your story. Keep striving, keep shining & don’t change for anyone.’
Introducing the BBC’s Olympics coverage last night, Scott, 36, made fun of the row, saying: ‘So far we’ve been runnin’, ridin’, shootin’, scorin’ and puttin’.’