After an eleven-year hiatus, ten-time UK sprint champion Dina Asher-Smith will this weekend make her highly-anticipated return to the Novuna UK Athletics Indoor Championships in Birmingham\u2019s Utilita Arena (Feb 14-15), with hopes of 60m glory.<\/p>\n
The 30 year-old \u2013 who is based at Baylor University in Texas \u2013 has begun her winter campaign with a fine 7.08 victory at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in Boston last month, followed by a 7.10 victory at the Millrose Games in New York a fortnight ago and Asher-Smith is very much looking forward to competing on British soil for the first time in sixth months:<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really excited to compete in Birmingham and connect with the fans \u2013 when you train halfway across the world, it makes you miss a lot back home and the British events have always been highlights of my calendar,\u201d the 2019 world 200m champion revealed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a more intimate competition than the outdoors and it will be great to be back home. We have the most engaged and welcoming fans in the world who are very loyal, knowledgeable and kind, and I\u2019m very lucky and privileged as a British athlete to have so many opportunities to compete in the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coached by Michael Ford since the autumn, the five-time British 100m champion and three-time British 200m champion will line up against world 200m champion, Amy Hunt in the shorter sprint final on Saturday:<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d obviously like to win and it will be really nice to see so many family and friends, and have a good time,\u201d explained Asher-Smith.<\/p>\n
The 60m champion in the 2014 and 2015 editions of the event, will be looking to eclipse her 7.03 national record from 2023 this season and has one eye on selection for next month\u2019s World Athletics Indoor Championships in Kujawy Pomorze, Poland (March 20-22):<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very early doors in the season but I\u2019m very happy as I\u2019m having fun in training and competition, which gives me a lot of capacity to compete well \u2013 which is something I haven\u2019t always had in the last three years, so it\u2019s refreshing,\u201d the 2024 Olympic 4x100m silver medalist and 200m fourth place finisher revealed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m taking it week by week so I will see about doing the world indoors. I\u2019ve made a lot of changes in training and I spend a lot more time in the gym \u2013 I\u2019m always working on my weaknesses and focusing on being the best athlete I can be.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very lucky to have some great new training partners and we\u2019re having such a good time, so I\u2019m really happy.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though being away from home hurts my heart, I run well in the sun and it\u2019s best for my performances to be removed from distractions and in order to focus on my rest and recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fifth and eighth in the world championship 200m and 100m finals, respectively in Tokyo last year, Asher-Smith is keen to add some major championship silverware to her impressive collection this summer \u2013 and is relishing the UK hosting both the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in July, followed by the European outdoor Championships in Birmingham in August:<\/p>\n
\u201cI really want to compete at both \u2013 especially the Commonwealth Games as I missed that in 2022 through injury,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n
A two-time European 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay champion and a Commonwealth 200m bronze-medalist in 2018 together with 4x100m relay gold on Australia\u2019s Gold Coast, Asher-Smith continued:<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll definitely target different events because the two competitions are very close \u2013 it\u2019s important to discuss the most intelligent way to navigate your way through that as well as possible, but I\u2019m excited for both for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more information about the Indoor Championships head over to our event page,<\/a> with tickets still available on AXS<\/a><\/p>\n Nicola Sutton for British Athletics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After an eleven-year hiatus, ten-time UK sprint champion Dina Asher-Smith will this weekend make her highly-anticipated return to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419871,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-419870","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}