DINA ASHER-SMITH
The record-breaking sprinter speaks to Lydia Slater about preparing for success, handling failure and being a powerful voice for women in sport
The fastest British woman in recorded history is keeping things slow on the day of our shoot. Though she loves fashion, and wears it beautifully, Dina Asher-Smith doesn’t want to be photographed running in a gown, or even, it turns out, to wear a pair of high heels – she can’t risk twisting an ankle. It was an injury she sustained shortly before last year’s Olympics that put paid to her medal hopes, after she ruptured a hamstring. ‘I was in a wheelchair, and then on crutches a few weeks beforehand, so it was a miracle that I was able to compete at all,’ she says. Interviewed immediately after the 100-metre race, in which she failed to qualify for the finals, she broke down. ‘Normally, I’m quite calm and composed, and I work very hard at it, but that showed me in a new light,’ she says. ‘Actually, I welcome it – I think showing your vulnerability is so important. But I can’t watch it, because I don’t like seeing myself cry…’
As a result, many of her hopes hang on this summer’s events instead. In July, she defends her 200-metre title at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon, then heads to Birmingham for the Commonwealth Games, and winds up at Munich for the European Championships – all within a five-week period. ‘I’m really excited,’ she says. ‘In track and field, we’ve never experienced anything like it. And it’s a uniquely British opportunity, because we’re the only athletes who have the chance to compete in all of them. I feel very fortunate to have so many opportunities to excel.’ Isn’t she daunted by such a schedule? She shakes her head. ‘For me, racing is the fun bit of what I do,’ she says. ‘It’s when you showcase all the effort you’ve made, all the sacrifices, and the time and energy you’ve put into your craft. I absolutely love it when I’m standing on the line, especially before a 100-metre or a 200-metre race, when the whole stadium goes silent and you could hear a pin drop.’
But while it takes her extraordinary physical effort to remain at peak fitness, psychological resilience is what matters the most, she tells me. ‘It’s tenacity, the ability to believe in yourself, although the odds may be stacked against you. You could be on amazing form, but if you have any chinks in your mental armour, then the race won’t go the way you plan. For me, mental strength isn’t the cherry on top of my fitness, it’s the entire foundation of what I do.’ The key, she says, is to ‘control the controllables’, and then let everything else go. ‘So if you’ve got a race, but it’s windy or raining, you can’t stress about it. Focus on the race and then get inside. I think the same way about disappointment. You can’t change the past, you just have to move on to better things.’
Asher-Smith is conscious of being a role model to young women, and unafraid to use her platform to talk openly about everything from racism to the impact periods can have on performance. ‘Sport is an incredibly male-driven and male-dominated environment, and conceptualised with men at the centre,’ she says. ‘Even talking about periods is taboo – people think you’re making excuses, without fully understanding that for some women, this can literally define whether they can run as normal or not.’ And who does she admire for her strength? ‘The strongest person I know is my grandma. When she was very young, in her twenties, she emigrated here from Trinidad and Tobago in the 1950s to be a nurse in the NHS, because she wanted to help people. But she also raised three children and ended up as Sister on her ward, despite many barriers being put in her way. I think that’s amazing. Some of us, particularly the children of immigrants, take what our parents and grandparents went through for granted. It would be so difficult to uproot yourself, to face discrimination, and still try to help others.’
‘Mental strength isn’t the cherry on top of my fitness, it’s the entire foundation of
what I do’