Being an athlete comes with its difficulties – what’s been the mentally toughest moment in your career to date, and how did you cope with it?

My 2018 season was one of my career’s toughest moments to date because nothing went to plan. Not only was I beaten for the first time at a major championship at the European Championships in Berlin (I got silver in the 100m and only just scraped a gold in the 800m), but I lost my 100m world record at the London Olympic stadium in front of 40,000 people and struggled to find the right balance between athletics and everything else in life (at the time, I was presenting a slot for BBC Countryfile so travelling a lot to film).

The defeats definitely hurt, but it was the headlines that hurt more. I remember reading people say I’d lost my crown and needed to retire. I was only 26 years old.

At the time I just ploughed on because it was the only thing I knew how to do, but that meant I had very little breathing room or energy to think about what was happening. It was only after losing my world record that I woke up and realised things had to change.

After that season, I took back control. I left my management company, moved house and changed training partners and gym coach. I made a conscious effort to change everything that didn’t fit with the plan and committed to leaving the track if the changes didn’t lead to an improvement. It was a lot of big changes all at once but I’m now really glad it happened because otherwise I would have been stuck in a cycle of distractions for at least another year.

At the World Championships in 2019, I took back my 100m world record and won gold. I’m pleased to say I haven’t lost it again since!

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