Before the pandemic wiped out the Olympic agenda, Dina Asher-Smith , the 200-meter world champion, was starting as a favorite for gold at the Tokyo Games. The British, 24 years old, wanted to remove the bad taste from Rio's mouth, where she was left out of the podium, and to revalidate the dominance shown at the 2018 Berlin European Championship, with three golds (100, 200 and 4x100). The confinement, in any case, was a great challenge for the fastest woman on the Old Continent, who was successful.

"The sprinters always joke about how the long distance runners make such enormous distances. However, after the weeks of seclusion I began to understand it," Asher-Smith confesses during an interview that will be televised on Sunday on the BBC. "I decided to run in a park surrounded by deer, something new for me, because my previous sessions focused on short and powerful programs in the gym. Changing was something strange, but it gave me a lot of peace," reveals the Londoner.

Contact with the natural environment, with its comforting dose of tranquility, was another chapter in all the accumulated experience. Because Asher-Smith also lived with special intensity on March 24, the official cancellation date of Tokyo 2020. "In some way I was relieved, because the situation had become unfeasible," recalls Katerina Johnson-Thompson's partner and Adam Gemili. .

Just outside london

The British record holder of the 200, with her 21.88 last October in Doha, faced the anxiety of those who can not see any horizon. "How was I supposed to get to the top of the Games if I had to train in my apartment?" Admits Asher-Smith.

It seems that now normalcy will be able to return to training in Bromley, outside London, where before the pandemic he spent two and a half hours a day for five days a week.

The panorama, in any case, is somewhat clearer to arrive at July 23, 2021, the new date for the Games, where he should fight for gold against the Dutch Dafne Schippers or the current champion, Elaine Thompson . Another alternative is the also British Amy Hunt , a teenager who last year, at just 17 years old, signed a spectacular 22.42, a new junior world record, until then held by Asher-Smith.

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