RELAY WELL DONE, DINA
After injury nightmare, she helps sprint team reach the podium
BRITAIN’S women’s relay team were jumping for joy last night after clinching a bronze medal in the 4x100m sprint.
They came across the line behind favourites Jamaica and the United States but faced an anxious wait over whether their first baton handover was within the rules.
When the result was confirmed, it completed a dramatic comeback for Dina AsherSmith whose Olympics looked over a week ago when she missed out on the individual 100m final, revealing she had been suffering with a hamstring problem since June.
But she fought back to run the third leg yesterday, putting teammate Daryll Neita in medal contention in the home straight. It saw Miss Neita, Miss Asher-Smith and Asha Philip add to the relay bronze they won in Rio while Imani-Lara Lansiquot claimed her first Olympic honour.
Afterwards Miss Asher-Smith, 25, said: ‘I worked incredibly hard and to come away with a medal here is honestly something I could not even have contemplated six weeks ago. Seven weeks ago [before the injury]? Absolutely. Six weeks ago? Not at all.
‘What actually hurt so much is that all I need is another week, two weeks and then I’ll be back to my normal speed.
‘I’m obviously moving faster here than I was last week but that’s obviously how recovery from these things goes.
‘You just improve every day so I knew we had another week until the relay... train, train, train and make sure I was as fast as possible in the time that I had for these ladies.’ The relay team was the second success of the day on the track as Laura Muir collapsed in happiness and exhaustion after bagging silver in the women’s 1500m final.
The 28-year-old from Glasgow smashed the British record, coming home in three minutes 54.50 seconds behind Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon, who defended her title from Rio.
Miss Muir has suffered agonising near misses after coming seventh at Rio, fourth at the 2017 World Championships by 0.07 seconds and fifth two years later.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared for a few seconds,’ she said yesterday. ‘The past few times I have lost in that last 200 metres, I’ve been there and I’ve lost it.
‘I was so scared that I was going to get pipped to fourth.
‘I just thought, “run as hard as you can” and I was like, “if I don’t run another step again, just make sure I get to the line as fast as possible”.’ After picking herself up off the track, she burst into tears before going on a victory lap wrapped in a Union Jack.
She added: ‘I want to thank everyone supporting me – Mum, Dad and Gran they’re all supporting me at home.’