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We had to wait a hell of a long time for these championships, by October I was getting automated emails from British Athletics telling me about indoor competitions - when my outdoor season hadn't even finished yet!
I did not do as well as I had hoped, going from being the world champion to coming 6th is quite the drop. Even though I got a seasons best after a hectic year of uni, moving to Canada and blade trouble, I still feel disappointed in myself because I know I'm capable of running faster. That's probably the most brutal part of athletics for me, the feeling of not quite living up to your potential. One also often wants to blame other things: the temperature, the jet lag, the fact the heat and final were on the same day, the blade, how people took about a week to get in their blocks, the drama in the call room... But in the end, it's a bit pointless because it doesn't change the past - putting too much negative blame on anything, especially oneself, is just not helpful. The best thing for me to do is move on, not dwell on it too much, and use this as fuel for Tokyo. The feeling of winning a gold medal is one of the many reasons I want to keep going, this might seem a bit basic to the non-sporty people out there, but the gold medal is more of a metaphor, a symbol for the hard work you and your coach have put in, the physical pain you've endured (I'm going to say it - disabled athletes usually have to deal with more of this), and any sacrifices you may have made to get to the top of elite sport.
Even though my heat was around 10:20 am I had to wake up at 6:30 am. You need to allow a lot of time for kit check, the transport and traffic. You must also account for when you have to be in the call room, as well as a bit of extra time left over to chill before you start your warm-up. I was actually feeling nervous for once! I don't really remember the race itself, but I recall feeling pretty tired from about 50m onwards and I crossed the line in third. For the first time since 2012, I had to wait for the next heat to find out if I'd made the 100m final as a fastest loser. Luckily I did and even ran faster than one of the automatic qualifiers.
If you compare the times for the 100m in London 2012 you can really see how the sport has moved on. Back then, I managed to squeeze through as the slowest fastest loser in 14.11 seconds. The fastest qualifying time came from Marlou Van Rhijn and was 13.27 seconds - 0.01 seconds slower than my qualification time seven years later in Dubai. The final was actually won by Marie Amelie Le Fur in 13.26! Place wise I also did better as a 16-year-old in 2012, coming 5th with a time of 13.98. Now you have to be running sub 13 to medal - I've done that before and I'll do it again, I'm 23 and refuse to believe I have peaked!
The build-up to the final felt a lot less nerve-wracking, I was relaxed and happy, ready to defend my title. That did not go to plan. The call room drama involved a lot of confused officials and athletes, we weren't given our lane numbers when we first arrived (totally against protocol because the lane draw is supposed to be set in stone once the call room opens). An athlete who had been disqualified after her heat for false starting (an official had spotted it from the stands) had appealed and got back into the final. This meant the athlete who was the next fastest loser (who been contacted after the initial disqualification to let her know she could compete in the final) was then told just minutes before she got to the call room that she was no longer allowed to compete in the final. This was extremely unfair as it was a 9 lane track - she could have competed! It was all very hectic and stressful for everyone, our lanes kept getting changed and it was like a less fun version of musical chairs.
I know I wrote earlier in this post about not blaming external things for one's own failures, but in this case, I'm willing to make an exception, my blade did not do me any favours - I was in the lead to about 50m, but the effort that took, and the lack of return coming from the blade, meant that the second half of the race was fraught with exhaustion and swerving in my lane. I know that once my blade is sorted I'll be able to run so much faster. Tokyo 2020 is my next goal, I'll need to be ranked highly in order to get selected and I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that happens. A Paralympic medal is something I still haven't achieved yet, it's going to be difficult, what with racing in an incredibly fast field with three different categories in it, but I'm going to do my best.
When it comes to reflecting on major championships, it's easy to label the whole thing as either 'good' or 'bad' based on how well you did in your event. I'm going to try to take a more nuanced approach this time, apart from the actual competition day, I had a good few weeks, catching up with other athletes who I don't get to see very often, I went to the beach, trained in the heat and didn't get heat-stroke and generally had a laugh. I will try not to look back on the Dubai World Champs as a total failure and instead view it as a small blip in my athletics career - I've had those before (2014, 2015 and 2016 didn't exactly go to plan either!), hopefully 2020 and beyond will go a lot better.