Team GB superstar opens up about Olympic ‘mistake’ which reduced her to tears

Team GB superstar Dina Asher-Smith has opened up about her ‘mistake’ at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris which saw her break down in tears.

Asher-Smith, who was aiming to land a medal in the women’s 100m event, dramatically failed to qualify for the final after finishing fifth in the semi-finals.

The 28-year-old, a Diamond League champion over 100m in 2019, was reduced to tears when she spoke to the BBC about the race, admitting she was ‘very upset’.

Now some time has passed, Asher-Smith has lifted the lid on the errors she made and admits she got her mental approach all wrong in the French capital.

‘I made a mistake,’ Asher-Smith told the Independent. ‘Then I corrected it, and went and did really well in the last three Diamond Leagues.

‘Sometimes it’s just about the attitude and energy you bring to the start line. Different emotional moods work for different people.

‘When you’re in a new coaching set-up this is stuff that you figure out along the way.

‘Nobody in this life, including athletes, are perfect. But all you can do when that happens is just to learn from it and not make the same mistake and keep it moving.’

Asher-Smith has clinched three Olympic medals to date, which have all come in the team-based 4×100m relay event.

Alongside her teammates, Asher-Smith won silver at Paris 2024, improving on back-to-back bronze medals at Tokyo 2020 and Rio 2016.

Asher-Smith is still waiting to register her first individual Olympic medal despite her impressive tally at the European Championships and World Championships.

The British athlete’s highest Olympic finish individually was fourth in the 200m at Paris 2024, missing a medal by two-hundredths of a second.

Asher-Smith is a four-time individual European champion, including the 200m title in 2016 and the 100m/200m double in 2018. She won the 100m title again this year.

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