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Louise Thomas
Editor
Team GB sprinter Dina Asher-Smith might be one of Britain’s fastest women, but when she gets home she likes to relax and slow down.
The last few months have been a whirlwind of intense training for Asher-Smith in the led up to Paris 2024, so her house has become an important place for her to unwind.
So what does a top athlete’s home look like? The 28-year-old opened her doors to ELLE Decoration to show off the calm interiors and muted colour palette that she comes home to after a hard day on the track.
Talking to the magazine about the reasons behind her interior choices, she said: “‘I wanted it to feel zen, like I was in a spa, and natural.
“I like a calm palette but I wanted there to be injections of colour and personality, whether through texture and shape or tone and depth.”
The three-time Olympian has worked closely with British paint and wallpaper manufacturer Farrow & Ball to add warmth and interesting details across her house.
The brand’s Carte Blanche range by US fashion designer Christopher John Rogers adds hint of colours to her living space.
Asher-Smith describes her thoughtfully designed home as a “labour of love”, saying it has taken her four years to get it exactly right.
The wooden furnishings, contemporary artworks and carefully chosen ornaments highlight the runner’s exquisite taste and keen eye for detail.
The athlete, who will be representing Team GB in Paris in the 100m, 200m and the women’s 4X100 relay, says creating a peaceful atmosphere at home has helped her get in the right mindset for these intense races.
“I want to come home and totally forget that there might be these incredible things that could happen,” said the sprinter.
“When you’ve got that environment and that internal peace it gives you so much more energy to convert into fantastic performances, speed and power in front of a stadium of 80,000 people.”
Asher-Smith has won many accolades during her career, most notably a gold World Championships medal in the 200m in 2019 when she became Great Britain’s first female sprinter to win a World Championship gold, and two Olympic bronze medals for the 4x100m relay.
However, she doesn’t like to have her accolades out on display.
“I’m not one of those athletes that has a shrine to themselves,” she said. “I normally keep my medals in a safe…it sometimes takes me a while to realise that my mum has run off with my Olympic medal!”
The full feature can be found in the September issue of ELLE Decoration which goes on sale from July 25.
