Dina Asher-Smith reveals the relatable secret behind making sports history
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- Hollie Richardson
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Dina Asher-Smith just became the first British woman to win a sprint gold medal at the World Athletics Championships, and she has shared the trick that helped her to get there.
We’ve just enjoyed an incredible summer of sport, thanks to England’s Lionesses, Wimbledon’s Coco Gauff and the Netball World Cup. And women in sport are continuing to dominate headlines well into the colder months, thanks to Dina Asher-Smith.
The athlete won a gold medal and sealed her first global title at the World Athletic Championships in Doha on Wednesday (2 October).
She won the 200-metre sprint in a head-spinning 21.88 seconds, which is a new British record (breaking her own previous record that she set in Berlin last year).
Speaking about one of the life hacks she used to focus on winning, Asher-Smith revealed that deleting all social media helped her to win.
Talking in an interview aired on Radio X, Asher-Smith said: “I deleted Twitter and Instagram for the duration of the championships. I just tuned myself out and allowed myself to focus because if you get swept up in those things, that’s when you start to get distracted.”
She is now the seventh British woman in history to become an athletics world champion, following the likes of Paula Radcliffe, Christine Ohuruogu and Jessica Ennis-Hill.
The incredible moment came days after she won silver in the 100-metre race – yet another feat.
Speaking about her triumph in a BBC Sport interview afterward the race, her emotion was enough to make the clip go viral (and cause the viewer to wipe away a tear or two).
“I just don’t know what to say. I don’t think it’s properly sunk in, but it’s just something that, between now and the last World Champs, John [Blackie, her coach] and I knew that I could do it,” she said
“But there’s a different thing behind going and doing it and to run 10.83 [seconds in the 100 m] and 21.88 [seconds in the 22 m], being tired, because it’s been a long Champs. I’m tired!
She added: “It means so much and yeah, sorry.”
She also told the BBC: “The Olympics is less than a year away, we have already been thinking about it. I don’t think there’s any time we’re not thinking about the Olympics.”
Twitter has shared its congratulations with the champion athlete, including Ennis who called Asher-Smith a “superstar”.
Brittany Brown, of the United States, taking silver in 22.22 seconds, and Mujinga Kambundji, of Switzerland, who finished in 22.51 seconds, took second and third place in the 22-metre sprint.
The next Olympic games take place in Tokyo in 2020, and we’re more excited about them than ever before.
Images: Getty