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How Asha Philip never stopped believing

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Asha Philip has been through the pain and now the 26-year-old British sprinter is savouring the gain.

When it comes to the summer ahead, Philip cannot wait for the roar from her home crowd at the London Stadium when – selection permitting – she steps out onto the track at the IAAF World Championships in August.

'That crowd is amazing,' said the British sprinter. 'You can hear the noise from the shopping centre.'

The aforementioned shopping centre in Stratford is about a 15-minute walk to the stadium, when there are no crowds, but it has been a far longer journey that Philip has taken which is something you can’t get a ticket for.

No wonder she could not take the smile off her face when she won 60m gold at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Belgrade in March, powering from her blocks to triumph in a national record of 7.06 to win by 0.04 from Ukraine’s Olesya Povh and Poland's Ewa Swoboda.

Along with being a hugely talented teenage sprinter who won the 2007 world youth 100m title, Philip was also a top trampolinist but later in 2007 she suffered an injury on falling at an event in Canada that tore the cruciate ligaments and broke a bone in her right knee.

It came on landing and the anguished screams could be heard across the arena.

The injury forced her out of consideration for the Olympics in Beijing the following year and it was 2011 before she returned to the track but Philip has gradually made her way back to the top, with Belgrade the crowning moment in her career so far.

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Time has, of course, moved on from 2007 but Philip revealed how mentally strong she has become from it and the lasting effect it has on her now.

'I was discussing it with our new therapist Rob and our doctor James Brown. They did not know much about my history and it’s not the first thing you say – 'Hi, my name is Asha and I broke my leg a couple of years ago’,” she joked.

“But it just came up and I was talking about things. I then let them know and I thought: 'It was a such a long time ago and I have overcome this whole injury'.

'I am happy to discuss it. I do not need to watch it again, I remember everything but having to tell someone and then let them know how far I have come...

'I have worked so hard, I know my journey and it is always good to tell someone. So if somebody is given that knock back, I would say 'don’t worry, you can always get back up'.'

And look at how she has got back up.

Her triumph in Belgrade was the fastest time by a European this year, with victory going alongside her 4x100m relay gold at the European Athletics Championships in Zurich in 2014 and her double medal success last summer when she won European relay silver in Amsterdam and then Olympic relay bronze in Rio.

'I overheard my name but you do not believe it until you see it (on the scoreboard). I was so happy,' she said after her triumph in Serbia. 'I believed in myself.'

She has other races in her diary in the coming month but she will potentially be one of the star names in the British team taking to short trip to Lille for the European Athletics Team Championships Super League on 23-25 June, a competition she has some affection for after winning the 100m at the last edition two years.




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