Meet Louie Hinchliffe, the British sprint prodigy with a secret weapon

'IIf you don't listen, you're stupid. Louie Hinchliffe, 21, delivered the phrase with his intact Yorkshire accent after making sprint history in the United States on Friday. He was right. If you want to navigate the hype and attention, not to mention the timeline of prodigies who shined but burned out early, the man with more Olympic gold medals than anyone else in track and field is not a bad guide.

Hinchliffe's 9.95-second run in Eugene, Oregon, made him the first European to win the NCAA university 100m title and placed him sixth in the all-time British record table . His name was suddenly all over TikTok and athletic forums. This could easily make your head spin, but Hinchliffe has an edge. He has nine-time Olympic champion Carl Lewis in his corner.

The frustrated golfer from Sheffield is an unassuming character who is a far cry from the pumped-up alpha males who have long posed and sulked on the 100m start lines. Lewis, who is the head coach at the University of Houston, mingled with this crowd and knows what's coming. No other track event captures the imagination as much as the 100m, and its simplicity partly explains why it has been so polluted. This interest also means that when a new sensation bursts onto the scene, they find themselves grappling with labels toward the past and nods toward the future. Is he the new Lewis? The new Bolt?

So, the day after Hinchliffe's victory, old Lewis, 62, warned the keyboard warriors. “What I want to tell everyone is to stop coaching from computers,” he said. “The guy's start is good, he runs fast. Everyone told me that if you correct your start, you will run faster, but I won every competition. So why don't they fix their finish? The guy is phenomenal. Stop coaching from computers and just celebrate a young man who is going to be great.

He is also going to the Olympics. At least that's what Lewis says. Hinchliffe, whose mother is from the Philippines and father from Rotherham, will be in Manchester for the trials this month, along with Lewis. He will have to finish among the first two to be sure of his place. It won't be easy to be part of the team. Jeremiah Azu has also broken ten seconds this year, Reece Prescod has run 10 seconds but has clocked 9.93 in the past, as has flying accountant Eugene Amo-Dadzie. Zharnel Hughes is the British record holder with 9.83 and will secure one of three places, assuming the injury which forced him to withdraw from the European Championships is not serious.

Hinchliffe didn't expect any of this when it became clear Washington State didn't want to retain him last year. He sent a message to Lewis in Houston. “Can you fix me?” was a question asked. Lewis called back and appreciated his attitude. “He bought into what we were trying to do,” he said. He quickly found a style that Hinchliffe could replicate and thus become consistent. A 9.84 wind last month blew his cover.

“You know he's been there and done that,” Hinchliffe said after winning the same title Lewis himself won in 1981. “You know everything he says definitely works – he has so many gold medals that you have this confidence you have to listen to his advice. He knows what he is talking about. He made me more efficient and I had a lot of problems with my hamstrings. that I run in a way that I don't get injured. Many runners break down and peak too early. We peak at the right time.

Part of Lewis' recruiting method involves a bit of role-playing. He tells prospects to imagine they're going to lunch and they have to imagine he hasn't seen them in 15 years. Then he said, “Tell me what you did.” » He says that setting goals has been the key to his own success. For example, he wanted to clear 29 feet in the long jump and was not congratulating himself on setting world records, only on getting closer to his goal. In the end, he was two inches short, but four Olympic gold medals in the long jump gave him some comfort.

Lewis was also implicated in the bad side of sprinting when it was alleged that the US Olympic Committee had covered up 114 positive drug tests between 1988 and 2000. It emerged that Lewis, the biggest name on the list, had received a warning after claiming he had inadvertently ingested banned stimulants, but he has recovered from the reputational damage and has since called for doping to be criminalized.

Lewis' presence at the Great Britain Olympic Trials will add some welcome stardust. His confidence hasn't faded over the years but there are warnings for Hinchliffe. In 2013, James Dasaolu clocked 9.91 at the British Championships when he was 25 years old. He won the European title a decade ago, but in 2018 he was asking for public donations to pay for Achilles tendon surgery. The third fastest Briton has never reached an Olympic final. Prescod, the fourth fastest Briton, also struggled to maximize his talent.

Calli Hauger-Thackery is a woman who already knows she's bound for Paris. She won a bronze medal in the half marathon at the European Championships, which helped Britain win team gold, with Abbie Donnelly sixth and Clara Evans ninth. Hauger-Thackery clocked 1:08:58 while Norway's Karoline Bjerkeli Grovdal won the solo gold medal.

“The team gold medal says a lot about the current state of British women's running,” said Hauger-Thackrey, whose father, Carl, won a bronze medal at the World Half Marathon Championships 31 years ago.