Beth Dobbin thriving on the pressure

Earlier this month, Dobbin ran 22.84 seconds to break the 34-year-old Scottish 200m record, which had been held by Sandra Whittaker since the 1984 Olympic Games. It was quite an achievement by the Edinburgh AC sprinter, and one that she admits came as something of a surprise to even herself.

“I thought I was in decent shape but I didn’t realise I was in this kind of shape – and neither did my coach,” she said.

“These are the kind of times I’d have been expecting to run at the end of the season so that made me think I could go even faster. When I broke my PB earlier in the season, that gave me a lot of confidence but I didn’t expect that I’d go on to run a Scottish record by as much as I did.”

Dobbin’s lightening-quick start to the season, which saw her shave another hundredth of a second off of her personal best at the Diamond League meeting in Stockholm just a fortnight ago, means that she goes into this weekend’s British Championships with all eyes upon her.

With the championships doubling-up as the trials for the European Championships later this summer, there is much riding on the weekend and Dobbin’s recent performances ensure she is one of the women with a target on her back.

Olympian Dina Asher-Smith goes in as favourite for the 200m title but Dobbin is expected to be one of her primary challengers both for the British title and for a spot in the team for the European Championships. That’s exactly how the Scot likes it though.

“I love pressure,” she said.

“You can’t really be an athlete unless you can perform well under pressure. And for me, the more pressure, the better. It makes you think: I cannot mess up here, and so you don’t, or that works for me anyway.

“It’s really exciting to be in this position. I’ve always flown under the radar and have never been the one to watch but I’m really enjoying people being scared of me for once. People believe in me now whereas before, they didn’t really have reason to believe in me.”

With British sprinting in as healthy a state as it has been for some time though, Dobbin knows she will have to be at her very best to book her plane ticket to Berlin later this summer.

“I’m feeling good but you can’t take anything for granted because all it takes is for someone to have a great run and your dreams are over,” she said.

“It’s very close – there’s about eight of us within a few tenths of each other and the others have more experience than me so it is going to be close. I just need to keep my cool, navigate my way through the rounds to make sure I make it to the final and then really go for it when it matters.”

Dobbin’s last few months have been even more impressive considering the crushing disappointment she had to deal with in missing out on selection for the Commonwealth Games by a mere hundredth of a second. That blow would have severely demoralised lesser people but Dobbin instead used it to drive her on to bigger and better things.

It was not, she admits, always easy, but her personality ensured that she would not remain down about missing the Games for long.

“Missing the Commonwealth Games really, really hurt,” she said.

“But I do think it’s done me some good – I’m not one to dwell on set-backs, instead, I get angry and use it to drive me on. So since that happened, I’ve had a lot of anger in me and I want to make sure I don’t feel like that again.”

Dobbin’s breakthrough may represent something of a watershed moment for Scottish sprinting. For all the world-class athletes this country has produced in recent years, there has been a distinct lack of sprinters with the ability to compete on the world stage and Dobbin is both optimistic and excited that could be about to change thanks to her.

“In the past few years, Scottish athletes have been absolutely smashing it over a number of events but we’ve never got any sprinters,” she said.

“So to put sprinting out there would be great and to do well in an event that hasn’t been doing so well in the past few years - I’d love that.”