Dafne will gear up for ‘Worlds’ after Holiday in Sri Lanka
It’s not every day that Sri Lanka gets to see a World Championship Gold Medalist sprinter walking down the city streets, let alone, the calibre of the two times World Champion and Olympic Silver medalist sprinter Dafne Schippers.
But, for the last three weeks that’s exactly what took place, when she spent three weeks out of her four week training break in Sri Lanka, eyeing for a fresh start before her training – targeting next year’s World Athletics Championship.
Ceylon Athletics was able to catch a glimpse of The Flying Dutch Woman before she left the country to the Netherlands yesterday, where she said she is looking forward to a long season next year as the world championships have been pushed back to the end of September.
“This is my free time; I have one more week of rest before the training begins,” said sprint queen Schippers, who was here with her brother who is also her manager and his girl friend.
“My brother said that they are going to Sri Lanka for a holiday and I can join them and I said why not,” said Schippers talking about how she ended up spending her much looked forward to holiday here in Sri Lanka.
“My season is going to start somewhere around May during the Diamond League’s (first edition at Qatar) and it’s going to be long season since World’s (World Championship) will be in October,” said Schippers.
The champion sprinter is the only defending IAAF world championship Gold Medalist to tour Sri Lanka so far and had been here since 14 September, starting her journey from Arugam Bay and then travelling Down South, Pidurangala, Kaudulla National Park to see elephants, Ella Rock , Worlds End and said she loved every bit of it.
“We came here to experience the real country and culture,and it’s a place that is not full of tourists and people are very friendly. I guess even three weeks is not enough,” said Dafne after she was mesmerized by the beauty that the Island had to offer.
She trains under star US coach Rana Reider, Dafne said she will be starting her training after another weeks break back in her country, the Netherlands, eyeing to defend her world title.
She trains along with some of the world’s top athletes, such as the US – World and Olympic Triple Jump Gold medalist Christian Taylor, the first British man, to go under the 10 second barrier in the 100m and 20 second barrier in the 200m, Adam Gemili, also British sprinter Desiree Henry and several others that she said, helps her to improve.
“We do train as a group, one group starts early in the morning and next at 11am, like that, so the Coach can focus on athletes, and training as groups helps to get through work outs and improve,” Dafne said, giving a little bit of insight of her day to day life.
Schippers won the Gold medal for the 200m with an amazing time of 21.63 seconds, third fastest time by a female athlete in history, during the 2015 Beijing World Championship, and that too after winning the silver medal in the 100M a couple of days before. Then she went on to win the Olympic Silver medal in the 200m in the 2016 Rio Olympic Games before defending her World Championship 200m title in London 2017.
Dafne was an athlete who specialized in the Heptathlon before she became a full time sprinter in 2014, after her success at the 2014 European Championship and took the sprinting world by storm during the 2015 IAAF World Championship.
The next world championship will be in Qatar from 27 September to 6 October where Dafne will be eyeing the sprint double which she has been trying since 2015, but so far, only being able to win Gold in the 200m.
