Dina Asher-Smith moves to North America, with dreams of improvement

Dina Asher-Smith

Dina Asher-Smith made a big decision last summer to leave the only coach she had ever had, John Blackie, to relocate to Austin, Texas, to work with Edrick Floreal. It was an amicable split, with Blackie telling her he would not be able to be in Paris and that she needed a coach who could accompany her.

In 2019, Dina won the World Championship 200 and came second behind Shelly in the 100, but the pathway has been less smooth since then. 2021 Olympic semi-final, 2022 Worlds third and fourth, to be fair, behind Shelly, Shericka, and Elaine! Then, in Budapest 2023, Worlds 7th in 22.34 in the 200 and 8^th in the 100 in 11.00.

When she met the GB press last month, she was very optimistic about the move to the USA, saying: “Everything has been very different. Obviously, I moved halfway across the world to a new training group, new coach, and new setup –  in the sun, doing a lot of a different kinds of training, different kinds of work technical work.  But I think the best thing is that in my time with John, we’ve been so successful. I’ve learned much, particularly how to be a competitor and put it together under pressure. When it counts, I’m excited to draw lots of the new things I’ve learned together with the experience and everything that John has instilled in me from a very young age. A lot of changes. If I were to list them all, we’d be here, all day that would be your whole article”.

Asked about her new training group, she talked about “American positivity,” explaining that the athletes in her group were “relentlessly optimistic, and that’s a great thing.  I’m very British. So that was a change. But if you were to say, ‘I want to go to the moon,’ they would be like, ‘How can I help you do that?’ You know, that’s mind-blowing.  I’ve flourished in that environment because I’m like, you know what – I mean, not talking about the moon – but yeah, let’s chase this goal. Let’s go. And even if we don’t quite make it, if we are shooting for the moon, we will, even if we don’t, we will be in a perfect position anyway because we were on this path. And I think I’ve really flourished”.

The problem is that so far, the results have not shown themselves. The 10.83 that she ran in Doha 2019 seems a long way off, with a season’s best of…