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Full speed ahead
Guy Kelly meets Dina Asher-smith – British athletics’ record-breaking leading light – to talk winning, walking at Paris Fashion Week… and why she spends her spare time studying political philosophy
Not content with being the UK’S fastest woman of all time, Dina Asher-smith has cooked with Mary Berry, studied philosophy and walked the catwalk for one of fashion’s biggest names. Is there no stopping her? Guy Kelly picks up his pace to find out. Portrait by Rosaline Shahnavaz
In the world of elite sport, it is relatively common – if not actively encouraged – for an athlete to break their monotonous routine of ‘eat, sleep, train, repeat’ by maintaining some kind of hobby or extracurricular interest.
Examples range from the inane to the improbable. At his home in north London, Harry Kane, the England football captain, has a room dedicated to playing the video game Fortnite. Mike Tyson, a man who once tore part of his opponent’s ear off with his teeth, has tenderly collected and cared for pigeons since he was a boy. And when Lewis Hamilton isn’t driving, he unwinds by making very bad R&B music in his recording studio.
The British sprinter Dina Asher-smith has her ulterior pursuits, too. She trains six days a week, spends most of her time, she says, ‘in Lycra, doubled over with lactic acid’, and plans whole years around races that last no longer than it takes to recite the alphabet – so she likes to take her mind off athletics where possible. I’m imagining her recreation time is taken up with something fun. Something light.
‘I’ve just started a political philosophy course,’ she says, brightly. (She says everything brightly.) Oh.
‘It’s 10 weeks, every Wednesday. I think we’re doing the state of nature and Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau’s contrasting opinions on it. I just find it interesting, so I signed up on a whim.’
There are a lot ways in which Dina Ashersmith is unlike other sportspeople. An interest in political philosophy is one, but let’s deal with the obvious thing first: she’s quicker than almost all of them.
At 23, Asher-smith is already the fastest British woman of all time. In the past few years she has not only claimed the national 100m and 200m records, but in the process become the first British woman to break the 11-second barrier in the former and the 22-second barrier in the latter. In Berlin last August, she became the first UK athlete to complete the ‘treble’ when she won golds in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay at the European Championships. By the end of that season she finished at the top of not just the British rankings, but the world rankings for both sprint distances. In acknowledgement, she was crowned women’s European Athlete of the Year, won the BT Sport Action Woman Award, and received a nomination for BBC Sports Personality of the Year. She is the smiling face of British athletics, who will go into
the World Championships in Doha in September as one of the favourites over both sprint distances; she’s the ready poster-girl for Team GB at Tokyo 2020 and, without shovelling too much pressure on, she is without question the greatest sprinting hope this country has had in a generation.
But that’s Asher-smith on the track. Off it, brands – ranging from designer clothes to yogurt – have been hurling money around to have her associate with them over the past two years. She has a history degree from King’s College London and talks about feminism on chat shows. She’s written for Vogue, cooked with Mary Berry, had a Southeastern train named after her, appeared in photo shoots with Stormzy and, during Paris Fashion Week last year, been invited by Virgil Abloh, the so-hot-right-now artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear, to tread the catwalk for his own label, Off-white. I’m not sure how she even has time to learn about John Locke every Wednesday, but I suppose speed is her thing.
It is in Asher-smith’s capacity as a brand asset that I meet her. In a cavernous warehouse studio in east London, she has spent an hour being photographed in colours that would look garishly loud on most people, but end up only just matching the brilliance of her personality. She is all smiles, all laughter, all humility, all gratitude.
Later, as photographers, stylists and make-up artists bid farewell, she seems to thank them for the opportunity, as if she’d won a prize to take part in a photo shoot. In reality she’s here as the newest ‘friend’ of the Swiss luxury watch company Hublot (whose bejewelled timepieces she reluctantly takes off ), joining Usain Bolt, French wunderkind striker Kylian Mbappé and Pelé.
‘I like doing these shoots, it’s nice to do things outside what I normally do,’ she says, once changed into her own clothes (skinny jeans, box-white trainers, grey Nike T-shirt and hair in a trademark bun), and settled on a sofa with a herbal tea. ‘The fashion side of this has made me far more confident as a woman. As I’ve got more involved, I’ve realised most people in the industry don’t care what other people think about the way they dress. If they want to wear a bright-pink furry coat, they will. That sense of confidence is inspiring, and something I can take into my sports life as well.’
When she was a child, dreaming of becoming an athlete, she couldn’t have imagined she’d be sitting here after a photo shoot, speaking about
She is without doubt the greatest sprinting hope this country has had in generations
clothes and luxury watches with a journalist.
‘Not. At. All. Not in my vision at all! I just remember seeing Kelly Holmes at the Athens Olympics. I was seven or eight, and I thought it was amazing that she won double Olympic gold [800m and 1,500m]. I decided I wanted to go to the Olympics.’
Asher-smith is an excellent talker. Her manager and a Hublot PR have joined us for the interview, but Asher-smith is the consummate media-savvy modern sportswoman – she even manages to naturally pay tribute to ‘the quality and the precision that goes into making a watch... Hopefully I can be of that high quality every day,’ she says with a knowing smile.
Geraldina Asher-smith was born in 1995, and grew up in Orpington, in the extreme south-east of Greater London. An only child, her mother, Julie, works in HR and is known to everybody in athletics, such is her boisterous support for Dina. She still goes to every single race.
‘My mum and dad come to every race,’ Ashersmith corrects me, with a laugh. Her father, Winston, is an engineer, and a quiet one. He and Julie have been married for 27 years. ‘They’re very different characters, my mum is loud and shouty and my dad is reserved. That’s why people think it’s just my mum. They’re so cute.’
Who is she more similar to?
‘Oh, I’ve inherited a mix, for sure.’ Winston taught his daughter to play every sport he could, including taking her to the putting green with her own cut-down clubs, while Julie bribed her to do cross-country at school with the promise of ice cream. After joining Blackheath & Bromley Harriers Athletic Club and meeting John Blackie, who remains her coach, Asher-smith’s potential on the track soon started to show. At 13 she set a junior world record in the 300m, and in 2012 she made the 200m final at the World Junior Championships. That was also Olympic year in London. Asher-smith was a kit- carrier for athletes at the Games, and felt the crowd’s pride when British athletes stood on the podium. It made her even more determined to join them. Preferably at the top, but as long as there was improvement, she was satisfied.
‘I remember being happy when I first made the top 50. Then the top 30. Ten, five, etc. I find it really interesting in athletics that you can improve year- on-year. I’ve always wanted to win, but if I came second or third I would never really be upset,’ she says. ‘I didn’t always used to be the fastest, but because I’ve focused on my personal development, that’s gradually got me there.’
In sprinting, there are a few basic rules that all coaches will impress on their charges – stand up gradually from the start, pump the arms, lift the knees, that sort of thing – but running style is still broadly an inherent, individual matter. Ashersmith’s style has always been as smooth as silk. Her races tend to begin with a shiver of out of the blocks, then, as she pulls away from the rest, her compact, 5ft 5in frame barely seems to touch the ground, like a stone skimming on a lake. Ashersmith says she wishes she looked as relaxed and effortless as her hero, the US nine-time Olympic medallist Allyson Felix, but Michael Johnson – in a BBC article under the headline, ‘Dina Ashersmith: Why British sprinter could win Olympic gold at Tokyo 2020’ – has compared her to the great Jamaican Shelly-ann Fraser-pryce. And Johnson is not a man easily given to excitement, let alone hyperbole.
Asher-smith’s rivals for gold in Doha are quick. Fraser-pryce will be there, as will reigning Olympic 100m and 200m champion Elaine Thompson, with whom she shares the Jamaican 100m record of 10.70 (Asher-smith’s personal best is 10.85). The Ivory Coast’s Marie-josée Ta Lou should be among the top three or four, too. What’s she working on in training? ‘We’re looking for hundredths of a second, rather than half a second or a second. But there’s plenty to improve. Things in my sleep, nutrition. My arms aren’t very strong, relatively.’ I look down at her extremely strong-looking arms. Really? ‘Yeah, I still get tired after like one pull-up.’
Asher-smith has remained a homebird. After school she stayed in London to complete her history degree, and only moved out in 2017, the year she graduated with a 2:1. She now lives alone, just up the road from her parents in Bromley, and is still getting used to domestic independence.
‘I now see why my mum used to get really annoyed with me if, for example, she’d tell us we need to eat the chicken tonight and we didn’t. She’d go, “Ugh! That’s £5 worth of chicken and now we can’t eat it!” Now I know that is a lot of money and I should put things in the freezer or I’ll waste them.’
Of all that’s happened in recent years, Ashersmith reckons finishing university has had the biggest impact on her life. She used to do her university work (she broke the British 100m record between her first and second years) around races, she’d be tempted to eat poorly in between
lectures, and Blackie would always notice if she had essay stress. She also loved academia so much that she missed it – hence the political philosophy course. At King’s, her 10,000-word final BA dissertation, written while recovering from a broken foot, was on ‘American Jazz: Comparing and contrasting the history and commercial images of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington’.
At the moment she’s re-reading one of her favourite books, The Picture of Dorian Gray ,but I’d heard she was enjoying Michelle Obama’s memoir, Becoming.
‘No! Someone got it for me for Christmas but I haven’t even opened it yet. Some journalists found out and were like, “Oh my gosh, do you want to be like her?” I was like, “Relax, I just got it.”’
Will she ever be running, in the political sense? Lord Coe was MP for Falmouth, briefly. ‘No, I won’t. I definitely won’t. I’ve never been minded like that and I’m very happy to keep running.’
At the moment Asher-smith is just about coming to terms with being a 23-year-old role model. Last year, she received a lot of messages from parents whose children had asked to dress up as her for sports day, wearing scrunchies in their hair (she wore them at the European Championships, as well as making sure to always have impeccable nails) and her name across their bibs.
‘That’s very sweet and humbling, but I’m still looking for role models myself,’ she says. Less comfortable still is being seen as the spokesperson for others. ‘Particularly as a young black woman, people expect certain things because of what they think you represent. Really, I only represent myself, and Team GB when I have that vest on.’
As an example, she says she was ‘approached like a billion times’ to comment on the matter of Serena Williams smashing her racquet during the US Open final last year. ‘I was like, “I can’t. I didn’t even watch it.” My opinion on that is as valid as anybody else who didn’t watch that match. So why did they come to me? I guess it’s nice that people think your opinion holds weight.’
Asher-smith is learning to use her profile and eloquence to encourage change, however. Earlier this year she was announced as a star signing, along with Judy Murray and England footballer Jordan Nobbs, to the Telegraph’s groundbreaking Women’s Sport initiative, and now contributes columns to the paper, promoting greater equality in the coverage of sport. At the initiative’s launch in March, Asher-smith was asked why her? Why now?
‘Why wait? There’s no moment like the present,’ she said, emphatically. ‘Why make it that we aspire to be better for the next generation? Why not the current one? I am aware that people with the same determination and drive are just not getting the same coverage. It would be selfish of me to not want to open the door and leave it open. There is not much point in having a platform without trying to use it to benefit the wider community.’
After the retirements of Dame Jessica Ennishill and Sir Mo Farah from the track, some were concerned that Team GB’S brief competitive streak had come to an end. Now, the likes of
Asher-smith and Laura Muir – the prodigiously talented Scottish middle-distance runner and, incidentally, a qualified vet – signal there could be untold riches to come. Asher-smith’s rumoured ex-boyfriend, Zharnel Hughes, the fastest man in the country, isn’t far behind in the men’s either, nor is another Londoner, Reece Prescod.
‘Me and Laura have a laugh about [the attention]. To the media I’m like, “Guys, look at her, she’s a vet.” Then Laura goes, “No, look at Dina!” It’s nice, but there are so many personalities and events in athletics. So if me having this platform brings more of a spotlight on the sport, so be it.’
Around training, competing, sponsorship activities and evening classes, she attempts to be as normal as possible. She doesn’t drink alcohol (‘it’s dehydrating!’) and rarely has enough energy to go clubbing, but spends a lot of time on Netflix and eating out with friends. Today she’s had yogurt, granola and raspberries for breakfast, vegetables and salmon for lunch, and ‘not as much chocolate as I’d like’.
Her friends, other than the rest of the Team GB stable, are still those she met at school. Years ago they all made a pact to go to Tokyo if Dina ever got there, so they’d better get saving. Are they ever green-eyed about her day job, meeting Stormzy and attending fashion shows?
‘No, no. They move in far more interesting circles than I’m in. One of them has just gone on a year and a half trip around the world. Another friend works for a big accounting firm and she’s always on holiday too.’
But you travel a lot, I tell her. She shakes her head vigorously.
‘It’s not the same! I see the coach, the plane, the track, I compete. It’s a business trip and on my one free day I’m so exhausted I just want to sleep. An athlete’s life isn’t glamorous.’
Since Asher-smith was a child, she has made a bet with her mother at this time of year. Dina will ‘throw out a time that seems so crazy’, and Julie will bet she can’t achieve it, promising to buy her something extravagant of her choosing if she can. It’s the old ice-cream bribe, only elevated.
‘This time last year I’d only run 10.99, so I said I’d run 10.85. It seemed crazy, but Mum was like, “OK, do it.” Then I went and did it…’
She got a Chloé handbag for that one. This year’s is a target in the 400m, a distance she hates but runs in training in order to improve her speed stamina. She won’t say what it is, but reckons ‘they might actually have one on me this time...’
When she thinks of the future, Asher-smith doesn’t necessarily picture medals. In fact, when I ask, she immediately mentions children.
‘Yeah, that’d be cool. Some little kids. I’d go to sports day and enter the parents’ race in a wig…’ she laughs. Winning doesn’t even sound paramount. ‘No, as long as I’ve reached the potential I feel my body can reach, I’d be happy. If someone is faster or more talented in your generation then you have to be content with that.’
It is a philosophical answer from a new philosophy student. This year, she says, everything revolves around Doha. She may have been the fastest woman in the world last year, but the Jamaicans and Americans didn’t race in a major tournament. Now, they’ll all want to beat Ashersmith. So, how is she planning to win?
She thinks for a moment. ‘Run faster?’
Dina Asher-smith is a contributor to Telegraph Women’s Sport
‘This time last year I’d only run 10.99, so I said I’d do 10.85. It seemed crazy. Then I went and did it’