Dina Asher-Smith
When Dina Asher-Smith competed at Hayward Field at the University of Oregon for the first time, she won her first gold medal in an individual major global championship.
She hopes to repeat that feat this summer when the outdoor World Athletics Championships come to the United States for the first time.
The reimagined Hayward Field will host WCH Oregon22 from July 15–24, and Asher-Smith, as the reigning World Champion in the women’s 200m, will have an automatic bye into the meet in that event.
Asher-Smith is the Great Britain record-holder in the 100m, 200m, and the 4x100m relay and figures to be extremely busy at Hayward Field in July.
“I think it’s going to be an amazing Championships in the U.S.,” Asher-Smith said. “We don’t run in America very often, and I would love to run in America more often. I would definitely love to run in America with the full TV coverage and the media attention that comes with a major championship.
“I really hope there are more American meets in the future. Having a huge competition in the U.S. is going to be really important for us all, because it’s such a huge and exciting place to run.”
Despite her limited appearances running in the U.S., Asher-Smith is well acquainted with Oregon and Hayward Field. She’s run in every Prefontaine Classic since 2018, and that first one was her first meet at Hayward Field since winning the 100m at the 2014 World U20 (Junior) Championships at the age of 18.
While the World U20 Championships at Hayward Field marked the first time Asher-Smith won a global individual gold medal, it wasn’t her first experience on the world stage. In 2012, Asher-Smith was seventh in the 200m at the World U20 Championships as a 16-year-old, and the next year, ran a leg on Great Britain’s bronze-medal winning 4x100m relay team at the senior World Athletics Championships in Moscow, one month after she won the 200m at the European Junior Championships.
That set Asher-Smith up for her first competition in the United States the following year when Eugene hosted the World U20 Championships, and she won the 100m.
“I think at that point, it gave me a lot of confidence in my own ability, especially against my age group," Asher-Smith said. “Coming into Eugene, I already had a global medal from the World Championships the year before, and I was getting ready for my first senior competition a few weeks later at the European Championships.
“I was always very used to being out of my comfort zone being the youngest and competing against girls that are senior, people like (Jamaica’s) Shelly-Ann (Fraser-Pryce), etc. When you’re 17 or 18, you’re used to coming in fourth, fifth and sixth.”
As an 18-year-old in Eugene, Asher-Smith dominated the women’s 100m, posting the fastest times in the first round and semifinals, and winning the final in 11.23 seconds with Ecuador’s Angela Tenorio a distant second in 11.39. Also in the final were Great Britain’s Desiree Henry, Poland’s Eva Swoboda and Americans Kaylin Whitney and Ariana Washington.
"It was nice to go back to my own age and reaffirm how good of an athlete I am when I’m against my peers,” Asher-Smith said. “That gives you confidence getting older and going through the ranks. And the experience of competing at Hayward Field was special. We heard so much about TrackTown, and the atmosphere was amazing.”
WATCH: Dina Asher-Smith wins the 100m at the 2014 World U20 Championships
Asher-Smith's career continued to ascend from that World U20 Championships win. In 2015, she was second in the 60m at the European Athletics Indoor Championships, and equaled the British record of 7.08 seconds. Outdoors, she broke the British 100m record for the first time in May with a time of 11.02, and became the first British woman to break 11 seconds when she ran 10.99 in July at the London Anniversary Games. She capped the season with a fifth-place finish in the 200m at the outdoor World Athletics Championships in Beijing where she set a British record of 22.07.
In 2016 and still only 20 years old, Asher-Smith was fifth in the 200m in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics and won a bronze medal in the 4x100m relay in a British record of 41.77. In February 2017, Asher-Smith broke her foot in a training accident, but rebounded for a fourth-place finish in the 200m at the London World Athletics Championships and helped Grant Britain to a silver medal in the 4x100m relay.
In 2018, Asher-Smith dominated the European Championships in Berlin, winning the 100m, the 200m, and anchoring the British 4x100m relay team to another gold medal. She was the first woman to win all three events at the European Championships since Germany’s Katrin Krabbe in 1990, and Asher-Smith improved her national records to 10.85 in the 100m, and 21.89 in the 200m. Those times ended up being the fastest in the world in both events for 2018. Asher-Smith was named the women’s European Athlete of the Year, and was hailed by World Athletics (then IAAF) president Sebastain Coe as the world’s next great sprint star.
Asher-Smith's performance in Berlin evoked memories of two other dominant Black British woman track stars — Kelly Holmes, who at the 2004 Athens Olympics became only the second woman to win the 800m and the 1,500m at the same Olympics, and Christine Ohuruogu, the 2008 Olympic 400m gold medalist and the 2007 and 2013 World Athletics Championships gold medalist in the 400m. Asher-Smith said she remembered her parents crying for joy while watching on TV as Holmes won her two Olympic gold medals in Athens.
“When I was younger, having so many Black British Athletics stars reaffirmed this is something I can do, I can be successful at,” Asher-Smith said, “and I can be celebrated in. Which, when you’re younger, shapes what path you want to invest in in life. That’s why we talk about representation, and how representation is so important because it’s important to see people like you succeeding. Then you think that’s what I could be in the future. It becomes an option for you in your imagination.”
With the retirement of gold-medal winning heptathlete Jessica Ennis-Hill in 2016, Asher-Smith became the new face of British Athletics, and it’s a role she takes seriously. She has repeatedly spoken out on the marketing of women’s athletes, and the inconsistencies over how they are profiled compared to their male counterparts. Asher-Smith has repeatedly asked that sports marketers glorify women who are muscular, fit, strong, and sweaty over what she calls a more traditional “aesthetically pleasing double standard.”
In 2020, Asher-Smith was part of toy company Mattel’s new take on its popular Barbie doll. In conjunction with International Women’s Day on March 8, Asher-Smith was one of four athletes who had a “Shero” Barbie doll created in their likeness to raise awareness of female role models in sports. The other athletes honored with a Shero Barbie were France soccer captain Amandine Henry, Turkish Paralympic swimmer Sümeyye Boyacı, and Ukrainian world champion saber fencer Olga Kharlan. Other well-known people who have also had their own Shero Barbie dolls include American Civil Rights figure Rosa Parks, writer Maya Angelou, artist and feminine icon Frida Kahlo, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author Ida B. Wells, tennis star Naomi Osaka, and American mathematician Katherine Johnson, who was portrayed in the smash movie hit “Hidden Figures.”
WATCH: Dina Asher-Smith shows off the Barbie doll created in her likeness
“I hope that I can be an example of going out there and working hard, being resilient and even though not everything always goes your way, still giving your best shot," Asher-Smith said. “I hope that kind of resilience, tenacity, hard work and focus is a good thing to show to young people.
“I think we are fortunate right now that there are so many amazing Black British role models across many fields that are giving back to their community. They are spoilt for choice right now. If I could have that kind of impact, that would be very meaningful to me.”
In 2017, Asher-Smith earned a college degree in history. She has dabbled in writing, appeared on the digital cover of British Vogue, and become a cultural icon.
“I always and still do maintain that to understand the present and the future, you must have a good grasp of what happened in the past and why,” Asher-Smith said. “And history is really interesting because it was an opportunity for me to learn about so many different cultures, how they work and why the world is the way it is today. I just think it’s so interesting. I get to travel the world for my job, and I have so many friends from around the world. I just think it’s very modern to understand where people are coming from.”
Asher-Smith made her own history in 2019 when she became the first British woman to win the 100m or 200m at an outdoor World Championships when she won the 200m at the 2019 World Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar. In the 200m final, she lowered her national record to 21.88 seconds and defeated runner-up Brittany Brown of the U.S. by a staggering 0.34 seconds. The 200m victory came almost a week after Asher-Smith was second in the 100m in 10.83, lowering her national record in that event, and finishing second to Jamaica’s Fraser-Pryce, who ran 10.71. Asher-Smith capped her World Championships by helping lead Great Britain to a silver-medal effort in the 4x100m relay.
That concluded a dominant 2019 for Asher-Smith. Including preliminary heats, she broke 11 seconds nine of the 10 times she ran the 100m, and ran 22.36 or faster in seven of her eight 200m races. In Doha, she was under 11 seconds in the 100m in all three rounds. While outwardly it appeared 2019 was a banner year for Asher-Smith, it wasn’t an easy one.
WATCH: Dina Asher-Smith wins the 200m at the 2019 World Athletics Championships
“In 2019, I was carrying quite a few niggles in that season," she said. “It was quite a difficult season. On the outside it finished very well, but I wasn’t too happy with the times I put down in that season at all. I feel like I could have gone a lot quicker. Bearing in mind the pandemic and 2021, you can image how frustrated I am now with my times.
"I actually think I could run much quicker than in 2019, and obviously I’m in a different position even than I was then, now. Titles wise, 2019 was good, but times wise, it was, meh, alright. It was a very long season, and I obviously won my first World title, so that was cool.”
Asher-Smith felt she was in the fastest shape of her career in 2021 and had high hopes for the Tokyo Olympics. She was undefeated in the 100m and 200m leading up to the Olympics, but while winning the 100m at the British Championships she suffered a hamstring injury that left her status for the Olympics in doubt.
At Tokyo, Asher-Smith finished third in her semifinal heat of the 100m and didn’t advance to the final. Afterward, she pulled out of the 200m before it started, and finally publicly revealed the injury she suffered at the British Championships. Asher-Smith did leave Tokyo with a medal, though, as she was able to run on the bronze-medal winning 4x100m relay. But not being at her best in Tokyo was devastating for Asher-Smith.
“I was definitely very sad for a while afterwards,” she said. “My coach thought it was important that I kept running so I could finish the season on a high, and so I wouldn’t harbor the disappointment. and so, it was just a clean slate for the year after.”
Three weeks after the Olympics, Asher-Smith finished third in the Prefontaine Classic, the only Diamond League meet in the U.S., in the 200m. The next week she was third in the 100m at a Diamond League meet in Paris, followed by a third in the 200m at the Brussels Diamond League meet. She capped the season with a second-place finish in the 100m and a third-place finish in the 200m at the Diamond League final in Zurich, Switzerland.
“I’m really happy I did that psychologically because I finished with almost a PB in the 100m (10.87),” Asher-Smith said, “and obviously with tearing my hamstring, rehab, walk again, jog again and questioning whether to have surgery, that’s pretty special, but I also think that it is testament to what I could have done that year.
“But at the same time, I’m not at the end of my career and people are running for longer and longer now. I should have a decade left to run. It is what it is, and (2024) Paris (Olympics) is around the corner.”
The next four seasons will be jam-packed for Asher-Smith and other British athletes. After WCH Oregon22, the Commonwealth Games are next up for Asher-Smith from July 28–Aug. 8 in Birmingham, England, followed by the European Championships on Aug. 15–21 in Munich, Germany. With the pandemic pushing back the Tokyo Olympics and WCH Oregon22 by one year each, the World Athletics Championships will be held again next year in Budapest, Hungary, followed by the 2024 Paris Olympics and the 2025 World Athletics Championships at a site to be announced later this summer.
That’s fine with Asher-Smith.
“Yes, I like it,” she said. “Just because any opportunity to go out there and perform and run fast in front of huge crowds and huge audiences is amazing. Especially after the pandemic, when we didn’t have the crowds, events weren’t happening, and I really don’t think we should take any opportunity to compete at our best and our fullest for granted. So, let’s go.”
Asher-Smith has a bye into WCH Oregon22 as the defending champion in the 200m and finished second in the 100m in a wind-aided 10.87 seconds at the recently contested British Championships to return in that event. She won her first 100m race of the season in 11.11 in the Birmingham Diamond League meet in May, then ran 10.98 for fourth place a week later at the Prefontaine Classic. In early June, she was third in the 200m in the Rome Diamond Lague meet in a season-best 22.27.
It’s all part of the plan for Asher-Smith leading up to WCH Oregon22 and other big events in the future.
“I take every year as a blessing," she said. "If my body is playing ball with me, I’m going to keep going. I love running. I love track and field, and I love sprinting. Training is hard, but I love racing, so hopefully I’ll just be able to race for as long as it makes sense for me.
“I would like to be one of the fastest women of all time. That would be great, and I would be happy with that.”
By Ashley Conklin
