Dina Asher-Smith wins world 200m gold to make history for Great Britain
Not so long ago Dina Asher-Smith studied history. Now, with each thunderous stride on the track, she makes it. And on a balmy desert night she summoned up a performance of shock and awe to become the first British female sprinter to win a world championship title.
This was not so much a race as a 91step exhibition of Asher-Smith’s staggering athletic talents. The usual rocketing start. Then a bend so geometrically perfect it could have been drawn by a compass. And, finally, grace and power right to the finish. Long before she crossed the line in 21.88 sec – a time that lowered her own national record – gold was in the bag.
Then, after a little jig of joy, the scale of her accomplishment began to hit, and her eyes began to water. “Normally I am so chatty and full of energy, but I am lost for words,” she said. “Everybody keeps saying world champion, world title, but it hasn’t sunk in and honestly I don’t think it ever will. I have dreamed of this and now it’s real.”
Such was Asher-Smith’s symphony of destruction that her nearest rivals, the US silver medallist Brittany Brown, who ran 22.22sec, and the Swiss athlete Mujinga Kambundji, who claimed bronze in 22.51, were barely in her slipstream. The champagne, however, will be put on ice until after the 4x100m relay final on Saturday.
It is 15 years since Asher-Smith was persuaded to do her first cross-country race at primary school and hated it. Halfway round she nearly stopped – only for her parents to promise her an ice cream if she kept going. She ended up finishing fifth out of 400 and a glorious track and field career was born.
After Wednesday night’s win she paid tribute to her coach, John Blackie, who has known her since she was eight – and knew, even then, that she was a little bit special. “I wasn’t the fastest when I was younger, but I worked so hard with my coach John,” she said, smiling. “That we’re champions together means so much to me.”
There were also the warmest of words for her father, Winston, and her mother, Julie, who have proudly followed her journey through windswept local athletics tracks to arenas around the world. “My mum and dad have been to every single one. English schools. National athletics league. Junior competitions. All the way through to the world championships and Olympics.”
She knows that next year’s Olympics will be tougher – especially as the world’s best 200m runner, Shaunae Miller-Uibo, was unable to compete here because of scheduling clashes with her favourite event, the 400m. But Asher-Smith’s achievements in Doha should not be played down. Her 200m time was so fast it would have won 13 of the 17 world championships.
“Obviously you want to run in front of a stacked field but at the same time a world title is a world title,” said AsherSmith, who looked back to her first moment on the world stage when she won 200m and 4x100m relay golds at the European Junior Championships in 2013.
“I would say to that Dina, just go and do well because you’re never going to be as nervous as you are right then and now. I even thought about that tonight. When I started to get a bit nervous I reminded myself that I was never going to be that young, unprepared or inexperienced again.”
And, whisper it, there could yet be a second British gold medal on Thursday as Katarina Johnson-Thompson leads the heptathlon by 96 points after four events. True, she is still a significant underdog against the reigning Olympic and world champion, Nafi Thiam. But the Briton has certainly done enough to make her great rival sweat overnight after posting her best-ever firstday score of 4,138 points.
Johnson-Thompson made a superb start, running a personal best of 13.09sec in the 100m hurdles and following it up with a 1.95m high jump. But it was the shot put, so long her bete noire, where she really struck a significant blow. After two throws that barely scraped over 12 metres, suddenly all the moving parts clicked as she threw her final attempt 13.86m – an enormous personal best by 71cm. No wonder there was a fist pump and a smile. A season’s best 23.08sec in the 200m ensured she ended day one with a healthy lead.
The question now is can she maintain it in the long jump, javelin and 800m? If she can match her personal bests in those events she will score over 7,000 – and that might be too much even for the great Thiam. “That’s a great day,” Johnson-Thompson said. “I’ve got another day to negotiate tomorrow but I’m in a good position.”
Elsewhere Laura Muir got her 1500m off to a reliably solid start, with no sign of the calf tear that had kept her off the track from late July to early September, as she cruised through her opening heat. However the reigning world indoor hurdle champion, Andrew Pozzi, was unable to put an injury-hit season behind him as he crashed out of the 110m hurdles after finishing fifth in his semi-final. He could only watch as the American Grant Holloway produced a shock in the final, winning gold in 13.10sec after the Jamaican Omar McLeod tripped.