Dina Asher-Smith made history to become the first British woman to win a major global sprint title at the World Athletics Championships in Doha last night.
Asher-Smith stormed to victory in the Women’s 200m to take gold in a new personal best and national record winning time of 21.88 seconds.
It backs up an already successful championships for the double Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth medallist who also took silver in the 100m in another British record time.
“I don’t think it’s properly sunk in,” said Asher-Smith.
“John [Blackie] and I knew that I could do it but there’s a different thing actually going and doing it – it means so much.
“I know I was tired and woke up today knowing this was the last individual chance and this was the moment I did all my work for. This is what we knew we could achieve if the season went well and the tiredness just disappeared when I needed it to.
"It means a lot and I’m really happy buy I’m going to enjoy this one and use it as motivation going into the big one [Tokyo Olympic Games] next year.”
With the Tokyo Olympics less than a year away there’s plenty of reason for Asher-Smith to be optimistic of achieving further silverware next year – her winning time of 21.88 seconds would have seen the 23-year-old win gold at 13 of the 17 World Championships.
In winning gold Asher-Smith joins an elite club of female Team England stars to have also won titles at the World Athletics Championships that includes Fatima Whitbread, Sally Gunnell, Paula Radcliffe, Christine Ohuruogu, and Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill.