BOUNCING BACK
JOHN WRAGG SPEAKS TO ASHA PHILIP ABOUT HER RETURN FROM A CAREER-THREATENING TRAMPOLINING INJURY AND BOOSTING GOLD MEDAL RELAY HOPES IN RIO
ASHA PHILIP
YOUR life is your garden.
Your thoughts are your seeds.
If your life isn’t awesome You’ve been watering the weeds.
“That’s my Twitter,” says Asha Philip as her words are read out to her.
“My own words, my thoughts. It’s about how to take care of yourself. If you water the wrong seeds then you are going to get weeds.”
MARK SHEARMAN
It’s the introduction to her Twitter account. What her all-male training group that includes fellow sprinters James Dasaolu and Adam Gemili make of it she doesn’t say, but we’ll come to them later.
“I’m writing about how you take care of yourself, sow and it will grow. Try and be a happy person. I’m always the happiest person you are ever going to meet,” she says with a huge smile.
“I’ve learned growing up that you can’t make everybody happy. You can’t say yes to everyone, and things aren’t always going to go your way.
“But I’m sure the sun will shine. I try to live my life happy. You only have one shot.”
However, for three years laughter was a stranger. She’d had her shot. It looked over. Walking again would be an achievement.
Philip had made history as the first British woman to win a global 100m title when she was crowned IAAF world youth champion at 16 years old.
British champion: Asha Philip goes into Rio in fine form
Not content with that, she was also a gymnast and double mini-trampoline world junior champion when she went to the senior championships in Quebec.
You can see what happened on YouTube. Philip can only watch it with the sound turned off.
“I don’t have to watch it because I was there. I remember everything perfectly,” she says. It could be a joke, another laugh in an interview where there are plenty, but it’s not.
Her right knee was shattered to pieces. That’s not the technical term, but it’s the reality.