Tokyo 2020: Paul Hayward: Even in defeat Dina Asher-Smith captures the hearts of the nation, a champion always

Looking back, the goodwill towards her obscured reality. Dina Asher-Smith pulled out of a British Grand Prix in Gateshead 18 days ago with hamstring trouble. To imagine her winning the spectacular women’s 100m final we saw in Tokyo was just magical thinking.

Now we know that Asher-Smith “pulled" her hamstring 60 metres into the British Olympic trials in Manchester in June. “I tore it pretty bad,” she said after failing to progress from her semifinal in Tokyo. “I was initially told it was a rupture and it would require surgery and take three to four months to get back.” She had a withdrawal “statement ready” but then took a second opinion that pointed to “a major tear” rather than “a rupture.”

Somehow, after a hellish build-up, Asher-Smith almost qualified for the final won by Elaine Thompson-Herah in a 1-2-3 for Jamaica as the fastest third-placed finisher. Credit to her and her medics for that. But the game was up. After another golden alarm call for Britain, with golds in the inaugural Olympic triathlon mixed relay and the swimming 4x100m mixed medley relay, it all went wrong at lunchtime, with Asher-Smith having to talk through floods of tears about the brutal end of her Tokyo tale.

Knocked out in the 100m semis, Asher-Smith won’t even start in the 200m. The obvious evidence of the damage caused to her fitness caused by her mishap in Manchester prompted her coach, John Blackie, to tell her to ditch the longer sprint. Thompson-Herah’s win in an Olympic record 10.61 secs only accentuated how far Asher-Smith was from the highest step on the podium.

For Britain, then: morning - good. Afternoon - not so good. So goes it in a world where a high wire act confronts athletes hoping to make it to the Games in prime condition.

Britain’s victorious male and female triathlete and swimming teams were a fresh and pleasing spectacle. But the focus on the second day of track and field was narrowing to a single woman in a lonely discipline: Asher-Smith, for whom a semi-final would normally be a formality. Instead, this one exposed the disruption to her preparation from an injury always more troublesome than it sounds. Hamstring injuries are serial killers of dreams.

Should she have been more open about how far short of peak fitness she was coming into these Games? Should she have managed the ‘expectations’ of her adoring fans? Those who answer yes ignore the reality that every other question to her in the last two weeks would have been about her injury and whether she had overcome it; whether doubt was stalking her.

In this age of news amplification Asher-Smith would have found the subject inescapable. Wishful thinking will have shaped her hope that determination could conquer lost time, or even a lingering infirmity. She was entitled to give it a try. But Blackie’s swift intervention after she had failed to make the 100m final gave the game away. Her presence in Tokyo was a calculated gamble and now Asher-Smith was leaving the table.

It should have been more obvious Asher-Smith was up against it. After her Tokyo semi-final she spoke of the pain she had endured trying to get the leg fully working again. That close to the Games, and against such a stellar cast, it should have been plain that Asher-Smith was trying to overcome insurmountable odds.

Now 25, she can still be an Olympian in Paris in 2024. She’s still the world 200m champion. Thompson-Herah is 29, so there’s still time. Twenty-five was the ideal age for Asher-Smith to become Britain’s first female Olympic sprint champion but hamstrings are no respecters of timescales. At least in Oregon next July she will have an early chance to defend her title in the World Athletics Championships.

As track and field team captain, social issues figurehead and all-round radiant talent Asher-Smith carried a huge cargo of British hope. Some of the ‘Brits’ who’ve made names for themselves in lower profile sports such as BMX were unacquainted with the limelight Asher-Smith struggled under in Japan. She spoke of creating “a moment in other people’s lives when they say…’that made me really happy.’” Many athletes avoid that kind of burden, focusing only on themselves. Asher-Smith relished her role as bringer of joy.

The reaction here in Britain was a flood of sympathy. What else could it be? Anyone who feels aggrieved at the secrecy around the seriousness of her injury should try walking in a superstar’s spikes some day. Self-preservation kicked in. Asher-Smith was evidently projecting an image in her own mind of how strong her chance would be if her physical problems suddenly abated, like a storm receding over the horizon.

Her optimism wasn’t rewarded, her gamble dived. Jamaica’s sprinters turned the women’s final into an explosive parade. Sixty years on from Britain’s last medal in a women’s Olympic sprint, in June, in Manchester, a small part of Asher-Smith’s body betrayed her. But it was big enough to spoil the story.

These days, in this pandemic, we understand the precariousness of life a little better.

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