The making of a record-breaker: Dina Asher-Smith’s remarkable medal haul

On the European Championships, Dina Asher-Smith grew to become essentially the most adorned British athlete in historical past. Statistician Mark Butler appears examines a profession that, up to now, has produced a tally of 28 medals and counting.

One in all many heartwarming moments on the European Championships got here after Britain’s combined relay victory on the ultimate evening. Infield presenter Iwan Thomas interviewed Dina Asher-Smith, introducing her because the nation’s most bemedalled athlete. The group rightly responded with one of many loudest cheers I’d heard all week.

It was a statistic I’d been hoping to see ever because the Paris Olympics when Dina stood on her twenty fifth podium at a significant worldwide championship. That tied a file set by Colin Jackson 22 years earlier. In Birmingham Dina’s complete went as much as a file of 28. There might be extra medals to come back for her, however it might take an athlete from a future technology to higher that determine whilst it’s now.

Her title first got here to my consideration in 2011, when she reached the 200m ultimate on the European Youth Olympic Competition in Trabzon. She was disqualified from that race for false beginning, one thing she’s by no means completed since. Amends have been swiftly made on the Commonwealth Youth Video games on the Isle of Man on the finish of that summer season. Her main championship medal rely began with golds within the 200m and the relay, a quartet which included one other present A-lister, Jazmin Sawyers.

Dina Asher-Smith as a young person

The next 12 months, British girls’s sprinting was at one thing of a low level, although Dina’s progress continued with seventh place on the World Junior Championships 200m, one spot forward of Shericka Jackson. Three weeks later she was a package service throughout “Tremendous Saturday” on the London Olympics. Britain had didn’t qualify a girls’s 4x100m crew then, however the rebuild began the next 12 months, and Dina was a part of it.

After taking two golds on the European Junior Championships in Rieti, she led off Britain’s 4x100m crew on the Moscow World Championships. They completed a creditable fourth however later phrase got here by of France’s disqualification. Britain had the bronze and Dina, at 17 years and 257 days, changed Mark Richardson because the nation’s youngest-ever World Championship medallist.

I confess to a selected curiosity in girls’s sprinting. On the peak of my very own lowly operating profession, I discovered myself approaching occasions set by a few of Britain’s main girls. I might see races of the nice Sonia Lannaman or Kathy Cook dinner or Joslyn Hoyte-Smith, then take their occasions as targets. These numbers stay etched on my mind. Even now if I see 22:58 on a digital clock, I believe not of bedtime, however of Sonia’s fantastic run in Cwmbrân on Could 18, 1980. In 2009, I attempted and failed to influence then chief govt Niels de Vos to have UK Athletics commemorate the truth that Cook dinner’s British data at each 200m and 400m had stood for 25 years apiece. In spite of everything, 22.10 and 49.43 have been at all times distinctive occasions which might win huge championship medals, even now. It took world beaters to lastly break them. Christine Ohuruogu was one, Dina could be the opposite.

When she clocked wind-resisted marks of 11.49 and 23.08 in a youth league fixture at Norwich in April 2014, we knew she’d wintered properly. She gained the world junior 100m title that summer season and broke the British junior 200m file to achieve the European ultimate in Zurich. Dina failed to complete that race due to a hamstring pull, however the British girls’s dash renaissance continued with out her. The nation’s 4x100m quartet gained in 42.24 to interrupt a nationwide file that had stood for 34 years.

It was in 2015, her first 12 months as a senior, that the Asher-Smith period started in earnest. She equalled Jeanette Kwakye’s nationwide 60m mark for European indoor silver. She minimize Montell Douglas’s 100m file to 11.02 in Hengelo, then 10.99 in London. On the World Championships in Beijing, she was a stride away from a 200m medal in clocking 22.07. Cook dinner’s 1984 mark was lastly crushed, after which a primary world relay medal was collected, with extra to come back in Rio 2016 and London 2017. Earlier in 2016 in Amsterdam, she grew to become the primary British lady to win a European 200m title. The next 12 months, she’d recovered from a damaged foot to position a combating fourth on the planet 200m ultimate.

On the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Video games at Gold Coast, Dina did properly to say a 200m bronze after which assist England snatch relay gold from a Jamaican crew which was anchored by Elaine Thompson-Herah. But it surely was in Berlin, in August, when Dina climbed to a brand new degree. She was the primary Briton to attain a dash double on the European championship, in occasions (10.84/21.89) which solely she has since bettered and even approached amongst British girls. A dash relay gold adopted.

Three extra medals adopted on the 2019 World Championships in Doha. Contesting her first senior championship 100m, she misplaced solely to Shelley-Ann Fraser-Pryce and snipped her nationwide file to 10.83. Then got here gold within the 200m in 21.88, the primary senior world title by a British lady sprinter since Eileen Edwards gained the 250m on the 1926 Ladies’s World Video games in Gothenburg. Silver within the 4x100m relay rounded off the best season ever by a British lady sprinter.

Dina Asher-Smith at London 2017 (Mark Shearman)

The momentum created by that 2019 world title evaporated when the coronavirus pandemic unfolded. Dina educated by 2020 and appeared prepared to hold on the place she left off in Tokyo 2021. With a view to get there she was obliged to contest the British trials on the chilly, uncovered and customarily unsuitable Manchester Regional Area. She clocked a quick 10.91 100m in her semi, but in addition, it transpired, picked up a hamstring niggle. This grew to become evident when she was eradicated within the 100m semis on the Olympics.

She tearfully scratched from the 200m to avoid wasting her health for the relay and that sacrifice paid off, with a British file of 41.55 within the heats and one other bronze within the ultimate.

In my judgement an excessive amount of was requested of all of the athletes in 2022, with the World Championships, Commonwealth Video games and European Championships held in fast succession. Dina acquitted herself splendidly on the first of those fixtures in Eugene, inserting fourth within the 100m and third at 200m.

She skipped the Birmingham Commonwealths however returned to defend her three European titles in Munich. Catastrophe struck when she cramped up within the 100m after a good begin. Then she was outsmuscled by Mujinga Kambundji within the 200m. As Dina waited to run the anchor within the relay, Britain’s first change failed. She had gone from three golds in 2018 to a solitary silver.

By now the medal rely was 22. Only one beneath Cook dinner’s revered British girls’s file complete of 23 throughout 1977-1986. There have been none in any respect on the world championships in Budapest in 2023 or Tokyo in 2025, although she fought her approach into the 100m and 200m finals on each events.

She regained her European 100m and relay titles in June 2024, however the Paris Olympics have been bittersweet. Dina missed a medal by a whisker within the 200m, then led Britain off to an amazing begin within the relay. The People have been below risk, however with wobbly British changeovers to and from leg three, it was to not be. As a substitute, Dina’s twenty fifth medal was a silver jubilee silver.

Indoors at Toruń 2026 she maintained her file of by no means failing to achieve a person World Championship ultimate, equalling her British 60m file within the course of. However there was no medal in that ultimate, or the 4x400m, the place she unexpectedly appeared with a wonderful 51.29 cut up.

So her medal complete was 25 earlier than that battling 200m bronze in Birmingham 2026, adopted by two relay golds wherein Dina clearly “gained” her legs. No matter occurs subsequent, I imagine the profession of Geraldina Rachel Asher-Smith might be regarded with the identical particular affection we’ve got for these of her previous podium icons Colin Ray Jackson and Kathryn Jane Smallwood-Cook dinner.

Very important Statistics

Born: December 4, 1995.

Private bests:

60m: 7.03i (2023 & 2026)

100m: 10.83 (2019 & 2022)

150m straight: 16.70 (2017)

200m: 21.88 (2019)

300m: 36.77i (2024)

400m: 52.13 (2025)

400m relay cut up: 51.2 (2024) & 51.29i (2026)

Medals:

GOLD (15)