Dina Asher-Smith blasts back to form with 60m UK Indoor Championships record
Given the doldrums British female sprinting was in before her emergence, it was perhaps little surprise that Dina Asher-Smith stood largely unchallenged on the national stage for the best part of her 20s.So, it was to some raised eyebrows that the country’s sprint queen was usurped by Amy Hunt last summer – the young upstart claiming world championships 200m silver, while Asher-Smith faded to fifth.The former world 200m champion could – but notably chose not to – point to the mitigating circumstances of a turbulent mid-season return to England after a training move to America gone wrong.But the changing of the guard felt significant: one athlete on the up and the other on the decline.Or was she?Now back in Texas, albeit with a different coach to the one she left last summer, Asher-Smith has spent the winter, during which she turned 30, running with notably renewed vigour.
A few swift early-season performances paved the way for this first appearance at the UK Indoor Championships in a decade, and a return to her throne looked a certainty from the moment she stepped on the Birmingham track on Saturday,A time of 7,17sec in the heats preceded 7,11 in the semi-finals and then an utterly dominant 7,05 – a championship record – to triumph in the final, well clear of Hunt, who clocked 7.
15 for silver.The winning time was the third-quickest of Asher-Smith’s career.Who thought it wise to suggest the best might be behind her?“I’ve learned so much about myself over the past few years,” she said.“I’m somebody who runs fast when I’m happy.I’m really enjoying training in this environment, but most importantly I’ve got to be happy in myself.
I think you’re seeing that,“Last year was very tough,But I’ve changed as a person, and I think I gained a lot of confidence from that because to be disappointed that I didn’t medal [at the world championships] when you have training disruptions like that … I was just proud that psychologically I could handle it,”She will now head to next month’s World Indoor Championships in Poland, alongside Hunt, whose strongest suit remains over longer sprint distances,“Obviously, it’s not nice to lose to one of your biggest rivals, so I’m slightly frustrated,” Hunt said.
“But on the plus side, we are getting a lot more consistent,For me to be frustrated with a 7,15 shows how far I have come in the last 12 months,“No one still expects anything from me in the 60s, so I get to go out there and just have fun,If I can keep this momentum rolling, I will be super happy.
”Asher-Smith’s winning margin was significantly greater than in the men’s equivalent, in which reigning world and European 60m champion Jeremiah Azu had to fight to the line to see off Romell Glave, clocking 6.56 to the silver medallist’s 6.62.The day’s leading performance emerged from what effectively became a first-round time trial.With the British selection policy for the World Indoor Championships merely requiring athletes to turn up and compete here in Birmingham, Keely Hodgkinson had announced earlier in the week that she would contest only the 800m heats and not Sunday’s final.
With only one opportunity to impress, the Olympic champion produced a phenomenal solo performance to break her own British indoor record with a winning time of 1min 56.33sec, the third-fastest indoor time in history.Instead of lining up for the final, she will take on a high-class field next week at a meeting in France, where she has her sights set on breaking the world record of 1:55.82 that was set on the day she was born – 3 March 2002.“I have high hopes for next week,” she said.
“I’ve been trying to get it for years.I think I’m very capable of doing it.I’ve had my healthiest winter in years, I haven’t missed a single thing, and I think that shows it.I feel like it’s destined to be mine – I feel like it would be great if I can break it.”
Reeves appoints higher pay advocate to fight skills shortages as chief economic adviser
Rachel Reeves has appointed a labour market expert who has repeatedly called for better pay and conditions in key sectors, such as social care, to reduce the UK’s reliance on migrant workers as her new chief economic adviser.Prof Brian Bell, who chairs the independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), which advises the government, has been announced as the new chief economic adviser in the Treasury – a senior civil service role.He will take up the post just as the UK economy is adjusting to a plunge in net migration, which fell by more than two-thirds, to 204,000, in the year to June 2025.Some economists have predicted a further decline, towards zero net migration – but Bell rejects that forecast, expecting it to bounce back towards 300,000 a year by the end of the decade.A professor of economics at King’s College London, Bell has used his role on the MAC to make the point that the “skills shortages” bemoaned by UK employers may often reflect the failure to offer good enough terms and conditions to domestic workers
Trump ‘plans to roll back’ some metal tariffs; US inflation weaker than expected in January - business live
Time to wrap up…US inflation moderated in January to 2.4%, an easing after Donald Trump’s tariffs triggered price fluctuations last year.Prices rose 0.2% from December to January, according to data released by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday measuring the consumer price index (CPI), which measures the price of a basket of goods and services. Core CPI, which strips out the volatile food and energy industries, went up 0
Elon Musk’s xAI faces second lawsuit over toxic pollutants from datacenter
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI is facing a second lawsuit alleging it is illegally emitting toxic pollutants from its enormous datacenters, which house its supercomputers and run the chatbot Grok.The new pending suit alleges xAI is violating the Clean Air Act and was filed Friday by the storied civil rights group the NAACP. The group’s 40-page notice of intent to sue alleges xAI has been polluting Black communities near its facility in Southaven, Mississippi. The pollution comes from more than a dozen portable methane gas generators that xAI set up without permits, the notice alleges.The NAACP’s first notice of intent to sue was filed last June and involves similar allegations regarding the company’s datacenter in Memphis, Tennessee
AI is indeed coming – but there is also evidence to allay investor fears
The message from investors to the software, wealth management, legal services and logistics industries this month has been clear: AI is coming for your business.The release of new, ever more powerful AI tools has coincided with a stock market slide, which has swept up sectors as diverse as drug distribution, commercial property and price comparison sites. Advances in the technology are giving increasing credulity to predictions that it could render millions of white-collar jobs obsolete – or, at least, eat into the profits of established companies.Carl Benedikt Frey, the author of How Progress Ends and an associate professor of AI and work at the University of Oxford, says investors are reassessing the value of companies that rely heavily on selling software or specialist knowledge.“AI turns once-scarce expertise into output that’s cheaper, faster, and increasingly comparable, which compresses margins long before whole jobs disappear
Winter Olympics 2026: skeleton, ski jumping, Norway win 10th gold, and more – as it happened
Righto, time for us to call it a night. Thanks for your company, we’ll be back tomorrow for day nine where nine Gold medals will be up for grabs. Buonanotte!Men’s Ice hockey: There’s a real ding dong going on over at the ice hockey arena in Milan as Denmark and the USA trade punches and goals. It’s 4-3 to USA with about 15 minutes to go… and as I type Jake Guentzel makes it 5-3 to the Americans.Speed Skating 1500m Final: Oh no! It’s a penalisation for Team GB’s Niall Treacy and he has his sixth place finish whipped away
‘Something to smile about’: Townsend salutes Scotland after shocking England
Gregor Townsend said Scotland’s supporters now had “something to smile about for the next 12 months” after his side regained the Calcutta Cup with a stunning 30-21 victory over England. The hosts ran out comfortable winners and Townsend said Scotland produced “some of the best rugby we’ve ever played” in the opening quarter.Given their wounding defeat to Italy on the opening weekend it will certainly rank among Scotland’s most memorable wins under Townsend, who has now been the architect of five Six Nations wins over England in six years. The head coach was full of praise for his players afterwards and says he was extremely proud of the reaction to the defeat by Italy.“I’m quite emotional,” Townsend told ITV Sport
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