High-flying British sprinter Zharnel Hughes: “It’s not about running the fastest time in the world, it’s about getting the championship”

The owner of this year’s 100m world lead spoke to Olympics.com about his plans for the upcoming Worlds, what it’s like to be coached by the same man as Usain Bolt, his eerily accurate race premonitions, and how he’s just as fast in the skies as he is on the ground. 

8 minBy Sean McAlister
Zharnel Hughes is hoping for a golden moment in Budapest

(Getty Images)

Great Britain’s Zharnel Hughes has two big passions in his life. And they both involve moving really, really fast.

This year, the 28-year-old Anguilla-born athlete became the fastest British 100m runner in history in a time that also gave him the 2023 world lead. Just weeks later, he also went on to break the 200m record. 

But not content with setting speed records on land, his status as a qualified pilot has let him take his passion for going fast all the way to the skies. 

“Loving speed, aviation was another thing that was easy to fall in love with,” the athletics star told Olympics.com in an exclusive interview just days after doing the 100m and 200m double at the British Outdoor Championships.

Zharnel Hughes: Flight simulators, journaling and a premonition that shocked the world

When you love two things so deeply, it’s easy to imagine how eventually both passions could become intertwined. 

Such was the case when Hughes, engrossed in his favourite flight simulator, asked his girlfriend if she knew where the book he wrote down his athletics goals was. 

“I’m always on the flight sim where I’m taking down different frequencies and taking notes from air traffic control,” he said. “And that book was filled with lots of air traffic control information. So she was like, ‘Oh, you need a different book.’ So she went out and got me a different book.”

Fast forward to the morning of 24 June, the day he was scheduled to compete in the 100m at the New York City Grand Prix. Hughes woke from a dream with a number stuck in his head. 

As had become customary following the purchase of his new training book, he immediately wrote the number down without fully understanding its meaning. 

“I just had 9.83 on my mind… and I happened to write it down,” he explained. 

Just hours later the significance became clear when he crossed the finish line in first place in New York. 

His time that day? 9.83 seconds. 

“It was a moment where it was surreal,” he told us, looking back on his premonition of a new personal best that saw him broke Linford Christie’s 30-year-old British record. “This dream actually came through. I wrote this down and to see it on the board was mind-boggling.”

Zharnel Hughes: “Sometimes the timing isn’t your timing and you have to trust your process”

Right now, Hughes is on top of the world.

On 23 July, his eerie knack for predicting the future repeated itself as he cruised home in 19.73 seconds to break the British 200m record.

At the end of the race, he offered reporters the chance to look at his trusty training book.

“It’s the exact time,” he said. “If you come around here, you can check it out.”

Sure enough, scrawled in large letters at the top of a page in large letters was 19.73.

Not only is Hughes wowing the world with his clairvoyant abilities, but the brilliance of his performances in 2023 have also secured him a position as one of the favourites when he competes in the 100m and 200 at this year’s World Athletics Championships in Budapest.

But in between the triumphs on his journey to the top there have been moments of crushing disappointment for the four-time European gold medallist and reigning continental 200m champion.

The first of those major lows came during Rio 2016, an Olympics Hughes missed out on due to a ligament injury.

“That was devastating because I remember being at home and having to watch it on TV,” he explained, looking back on what can be one of the cruelest moments in the life of an athlete.

Then five years later at Tokyo 2020, which took place in 2021, he false started in the 100m final, scuppering his Olympic dreams for another three years.

However, there is a resilience about Hughes that has shown itself in his ability to bounce back from disappointment and take his career to new heights.

“That in itself has helped me to become the athlete I am today,” Hughes said of his trevails in Rio and Tokyo. “That has pushed me to become a lot more focused and patient along the journey because some of the time we see others do great things and you want to be part of that as well. But some of the times, the timing isn’t your timing and you just have to learn to trust your process and know that your deal will come one day.”

Zharnel Hughes races against idol Usain Bolt at the Adidas Grand Prix in 2013 (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

(2015 Getty Images)

Zharnel Hughes on being inspired by Usain Bolt and his legendary coach Glen Mills 

Hughes’ love for athletics can be traced back to an early school sports day in the Eastern Caribbean island of Anguilla when he came home with seven gold medals. 

And while his victories that day included a number of non-sprinting pursuits - he even won the cricket ball throw competition, the youngster decided to dedicate his time to athletics and made strong headway as an up-and-coming athlete. 

But it was London 2012 and the sprint medals of Usain Bolt that really sent his love for track & field into overdrive. 

“Right after we watched the Olympics, I went out into the yard and I started running up and down and my mum was like, ‘take it easy, take it easy’,” he remembered, looking back on the weeks when he and his family was first inspired by the domination of Jamaica’s Bolt and Yohan Blake on TV in the Caribbean.

Soon after Hughes began training seriously, and after just a few short years he found himself teaming up with Bolt’s legendary running coach Glen Mills.

‘Mr. Mills has been to the top,” he says of his decorated mentor. “He knows what it takes to get you ready for the championship. 

“The whole thing it comes down to with Coach Mills is is mindset. The guy has self-belief like no other. If he says he’s going to do this, he’s going to do that.”

As well as being coached by Mills, Hughes also found himself training alongside the great Bolt himself and, while they never sat down and talked race strategy together, he does remember the fastest man ever bellowing words of encouragement to him during the tougher training sessions. 

“There would be times where I would be dying on the track and he might shout me out and say, ‘Zharnel, come on man, get up!’ and stuff like that, but to say we actually sat down and had really deep conversations, we never got the chance to do that. 

“But I’ve always been inspired by his tenacity, his whole work ethic, just his whole demeanour to being the athlete that he is. 

“He’s the type of person who would come to the track, even if he’s late or not, he’s going to get the work done regardless. If he’s dying on the ground his therapist would come along, shake out his legs, ice bag him right there and get him up and he’d go again.

“Just seeing that mindset… even though he’d made it to the top, the work ethic remained high. And that for me was very inspirational.”

Zharnel Hughes wins the 2023 British 100m title in the rain

(2023 Getty Images)

The high-flying running star with the mindset of a pilot 

There is an attention to detail in the ways Hughes prepares himself for his running challenges that make you understand how he has taken so easily to being a pilot. 

The part of his brain used to decipher air traffic control messages and flight frequencies to ensure a successful flight is the same he uses to journal training information and detailed race strategies. 

Take, for instance his victories at the British Outdoor Championships. The first in the 100m was achieved in “biblical’ rain conditions that laid waste to broadcasting equipment and left some commentators asking whether the race should have taken place at all. 

Hughes still came home in 10.03, despite admitting that “about 50 to 60m into the race, I just closed my eyes and just hoped that I stayed in my lane.”

But it was his 200m performance that gave him most hope, as he finished the race in a hugely impressive 19.77 seconds - at the time his fastest race ever.

Hughes explains that his half-lap race plan had been carefully constructed on his experiences of going through the phases during the earlier rounds. So much so that he turned to Coach Mills and told him, “I’m going to run something crazy” because he knew exactly how he wanted to take on the race. 

Now his attentions have turned to the World Athletics Championships that take place from 19 to 27 August in Budapest. And, even though his dreams have proved accurate in the past,  he won’t only be focused on jotting down times in his book as he plots a route to victory in Hungary. 

“It’s not about going out there and running the fastest time in the world,” he revealed to us. “What’s important to me is to get the championship. 

“It can be run in 10.0 for all I care and you can still win the championship - that’s all that matters to me.

“So the goals of me writing out what time I’m going to run there hasn’t been written yet.”

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