Louie Hinchliffe is very laid-back, to the extent that he arrived on the Eurostar into Paris unaware what day he was actually competing in the 100m at the Olympics.
While his sprint rivals are usually amped up and talking their way to sprint glory, Hinchliffe is relaxed to the point it is occasionally maddening to coach Carl Lewis and the other support staff around him.
But unlike Noah Lyles’s verbal diarrhoea en route to a double world title at the World Championships last year, the 22-year-old with the silent swagger has no plans to change his ways.
“I think I’ll let my running do the talking,” he said, with a smile. “I don’t need to trash-talk.”
As for his chilled demeanour, he admits that might need a tweak in Paris and beyond. “People say I need to be more switched on and not too relaxed,” he said, although his body language does not suggest he is planning to change his ways any time soon.
In any case, he argues, he is switched on when he needs to be — and results seem to suggest he is going about things in the right way with such an easy-going approach. He has run the quickest time by a Briton in history, although his 9.84sec effort is not in the record books, because it was wind-assisted, but he still has a best official time of 9.95.
Prior to the start of this year, he was unheard of in sprinting circles, but is now a sub-10sec runner and the relatively recently crowned British champion. And all of that rests on his decision to quit Lancaster University and relocate to Houston in Texas to work under nine-time Olympic champion Lewis, while continuing his studies in management and IT.
Lewis flew over to Manchester for his national title win at the end of June and has been in Paris to guide him amid his other duties, including carrying the Olympic torch on a speedboat down the River Seine, although looking terrified in doing so, much to his young charge’s amusement.
Explaining his own shift in pace this season, the Sheffield sprinter said: “There’s been multiple factors, but Carl’s been a very big factor. To be with a guy who’s achieved what he’s achieved, being surrounded by winners like him has helped push me on.”
Lewis has talked about being a variety of different things to Hinchliffe: a coach, part-father figure, older brother, confidant, sounding board and almost headmaster when needs must.
Describing Lewis’s coaching approach, Hinchliffe said: “I would say he’s an arm around the shoulder coach, [someone] who cares for his athletes. Obviously, he’s there if and when you’re stepping out of line, and he’ll shout if needed, but it’s not like he’s ripping you to shreds. He shows a lot of compassion.”
Should Hinchliffe ever brag about his results, which is not often, Lewis is apparently quick to bring up his own past successes should he need to, in order to put his own athletes’ performances into perspective. “With what he’s done, he could be a lot more unlikeable and let it get to his head,” said Hinchliffe. “He’s very down to earth.”
At the start of the year, Britain’s new sprint sensation, who has been tipped to be one of Britain’s best yet by his coach, even eclipsing former rival Linford Christie, said he had no expectation of making it to Paris.
“Definitely not,” he said. “But that was the intention in going to Houston. I was running nowhere near as fast last year, so it’s exceeded my expectations to achieve what I’ve achieved.”
Does that allow him to dare to dream of a medal here in the 100m or go on to emulate his coach’s prediction for him? “I don’t really have a target,” he said of his event, which gets under way on Saturday. “A lot of people set targets for me, but I don’t like to. I just want to run against myself and leave the race with no regrets. I don’t mind what position I end up, as long as I leave the race happy and I did the best I could do.
“As for the future, I don’t like thinking too far ahead. The task I’ve got, I don’t need to be thinking down the line.”
