Danvers set to fulfill promise, as British sprinters eye Paris

It’s 10 years this summer since Sally Gunnell claimed complete ownership of the women’s 400m hurdles. Already the Olympic champion, the golden girl of British athletics won the most dramatic race of the 1993 IAAF World Championships in Stuttgart when she pipped USA’s Sandra Farmer-Patrick on the line, taking the title and setting a new world record of 52.74, just five hundredths of a second ahead of the American.

It’s taken a decade, but Britain now has a new hope in one lap hurdling, someone who this year has shown that she might, just might, take on Gunnell’s mantle. If she does, Natasha Danvers will partly have Gunnell to thank, for the former champion has been studying video tapes of Danvers’ races this week and advising the California-based Brit on her hurdling technique in advance of the Norwich Union World Trials and AAAs championships in Birmingham this weekend (25 - 27 July).

“You can talk to lots of people and learn what it takes to be a champion,” says Danvers, who was part of the HSI group with Maurice Greene, Ato Boldon and Inger Miller from 2000 until earlier this year. “But talking to Sally is different. She has done exactly what I want to do in my event. Sally won the Olympic Games, the World Championships and broke the World record – that’s what I want.”

In previous years, such goals might have seemed a little far fetched. Danvers is one of those athletes who has often flattered to deceive, never more so than when she was heading for a medal in the Commonwealth Games final last summer only to crash into hurdle 10 and come clattering to the track in a frustrated heap. It wasn’t the first time she’d fallen at the last – it happened in the European Cup final in 2001 – and seemed to confirm the common notion that Danvers would never quite fulfill the potential she’d shown by reaching the Olympic final in Sydney and winning the World University Games gold medal in 2001, with a then pb of 54.94.

Of her Commonwealth Games disaster she says now: “It was a memory, it’s over. I could still be pulling my hair out about it, but it would ruin me. I could be thinking, ‘My God, I’m so scared of hurdle 10’, or I can just say, ‘Next time I see hurdle 10 it’s over’.” Disarmingly honest about her tendency to trip up, she admits it was down to “lack of confidence, poor technique and running out of steam”.

This season, all that appears to have changed, as Danvers has put bad memories and others people’s doubts aside, and begun breaking personal bests for fun, most recently clocking 54.02 in Rome. That was her third pb this month, and made her the third fastest athlete in the world this year, behind Australia’s Jana Pittman (53.62) and Romania’s Ionelea Tirlea (53.87). Danvers now confidently predicts she will run close to 53.5 in the coming weeks, and has her eyes set firmly on a world championship medal.

So what’s made the difference? A resident of Los Angeles for the last five years, where she took a music industry degree at the University of Southern California, Danvers is now a full-time athlete with a coaching set up more suited to her needs than the HSI crowd. Darrell Smith, John Smith’s nephew, has become her personal coach, working with her one-to-one on improving her hurdling technique and increasing her confidence.

As well as the ever-decreasing one lap times, Smith has also pushed Danvers to attack the sprint hurdles with genuine belief, and she has duly lowered her best in that event to 12.96. It’s clearly a partnership that works off the track too for the pair are due to be married in November. “It helps because he understands me as a person as well as an athlete,” she says.

Such is her form, that Danvers is almost certain to win the World Trials; the question is, can she do the same in Paris? “Well,” she says, “as far as Darrell is concerned, medals are it this year. There is no other option. Making teams and making finals isn’t enough.”

Paris Qualification on the line in Birmingham

For many athletes, however, making the team will be the order of the weekend in Birmingham, for only those finishing first or second, with ‘A’ standard qualifying times achieved, are guaranteed a seat on the plane to Paris. While some, such as Danvers, and her male equivalent Chris Rawlinson, should breeze through the trials with ease, other top name athletes know they have a real battle on their hands.

None more so than the male sprinters for whom these championships have become a traditional domestic show down. At least three Paris medal hopes are doubling up in Birmingham – European 100m champion Dwain Chambers, Olympic 200m silver medallist Darren Campbell and former European indoor 200m champion Christian Malcolm will all contest the 100m on Saturday before settling into their blocks for the 200m the following day.

They’ll be joined in the shorter sprint by former World junior champion Mark Lewis-Francis and world indoor bronze medallist Jason Gardner; and in the longer event by World indoor champion Marlon Devonish, former Commonwealth Games champion Julian Golding and the new face on the line, former European junior bronze medallist Chris Lambert. It’s quite a line-up.

With no one really dominating either event this year, it would take a brave person to predict the outcome. While Chambers will have taken confidence from his victory in the somewhat farcical 100m race in Gateshead, even he is saying he needs to keep all his options open. Both he and Lewis-Francis have been inconsistent this season, although the 20 year-old is making big noises about his prospects on his home track.

“Am I worried about missing out on the British team? Tell me how that is going to happen?” Lewis-Francis said last week. “Everybody knows that I am a different athlete when it comes to a championship format. I am far better when I run rounds as it allows me to build my focus towards the final.”

With a number of female stars, such as Paula Radcliffe, Katherine Merry, Ashia Hansen, Kelly Holmes and Jo Fenn, all absent through illness or injury, Jonathan Edwards missing from the men’s Triple Jump, and the retired Colin Jackson no longer in the frame, the men’s sprints will be even more of a focus than usual this year, for fans and media alike.

Yet, with World Championships places up for grabs, and the extra incentive of £5,000 on offer to each of the top five performers, as measured against the IAAF world lists, the competition is sure to be fierce throughout the three days.