LIFE IN THE FAST LANE

A KIT CARRIER AT LONDON 2012, DINA ASHER-SMITH COULD BE WINNING A MEDAL AT THE RIO OLYMPICS, WRITES JOHN WRAGG

GETTY IMAGES FOR BRITISH ATHLETICS & MARK SHEARMAN

WHEN SHE was eight years of age, Dina Asher-Smith drew a picture of herself on an Olympic podium and gave it to her mum.

Right now she’s working day after day to get better until one day her mother, Julie, can take that little drawing and place it next to a photo of her daughter on the Olympic podium with her medal.

Maybe this summer at Rio. That’s the plan. But there are sacrifices to be made.

She loves carrot cake and has had to give it up. “Yes, I do, love it,” says Asher-Smith. “But I cannot have it when I want it. Definitely no. The last time I had carrot cake must’ve been September.

“And that goes for Domino’s pizza as well. I love the Domino’s. I’m one of those people that even if I look at a cake I’ve put weight on. If I was one of those people who could just eat what they want I would be doing that 110%.

“If I want to move quickly though, the carrot cake doesn’t really help.

“Carrot cake in one hand, Olympic medal in the other – the same colour, but I can’t have one if I want the other.”

It’s a small sacrifice, but the life of the genuine athlete is made up of these.

Asher-Smith, the quickest woman in Britain, has to dodge from university to training to bed to university to training on a daily demanding schedule. She’s late for this interview because her timetable became so crammed. But better dodging to keep to a schedule than be dodgy.

She explains: “My normal day? University all day then training all night. Most days

I start at 9am til I don’t know, about four, except Fridays when it’s 11 to six. Training starts at seven until nine.

Dina Asher-Smith: has a hectic lifestyle split between learning and training

“So I come home, eat, sleep, get ready for training, go training, comeback, get ready for the next day, go to sleep. So yes, pretty jam packed.

“But you know what? I really enjoy it. I love doing it.”

How does she go a bit slower in life, though?

“I see my friends a lot, athletics friends, school friends, university friends,” she says. “I’ve known some of them since I was five years old. We go out for meals even if it is that I have to stick to the healthy option. And we are chatting, chatting, chatting.