Natasha DANVERS

Tasha Danvers started as a 100 metre hurdler and was twice national Under-20 champion and a World Junior Championships finalist at the high hurdles in 1996. After leaving England to take up an athletics scholarship at the University of Southern California she was successfully converted to a 400 hurdler and reached the finals of both the European Championship and Commonwealth Games in 1998 in only her second season at the event. She was European Under-23 champion in 1999 but it still came as a surprise to many when she reached the Olympic final in Sydney. Danvers showed remarkable consistency after Sydney and was a finalist at every major championship over the next three years. She married her coach Darrell Smith, the nephew of acclaimed sprint coach John Smith, and missed a chance at the 2004 Olympics due to the birth of her son. On her return to her track she collected the first major medal of her career, a silver at the 2006 Commonwealth Games and resumed her run of major finals. In the Olympic year of 2008 she struggled with her fitness in the early part of the season but her slightly controversial choice for the Olympic team was vindicated when she ran the fastest time of her career to win the bronze medal. Since Beijing she has been blighted by a succession of injuries and has raced barely a handful of times.

Personal Bests: 400 – 52.89 (2008); 400H – 53.84 (2008).