WHEN it comes to chasing medals at the World Para Athletics Championships in London, Samantha Kinghorn has an added incentive: her coach Ian Mirfin has promised that if the 21-year-old wins gold, she has permission to dye his hair any colour of her choosing.
Mirfin would have good cause to fear an imminent makeover to his thatch. The Glasgow-based wheelchair racer has already got her season off to a flying start by claiming a world record in the T53 200m, clocking 28.67sec at Arizona's Desert Challenge in May.
Kinghorn added European records in the 100m (16.21sec), 400m (53.72sec) and 800m (1.47.60) at the Daniela Jutzeler Memorial and the Swiss Open Nationals in Arbon, Switzerland, a fortnight later. Those blistering times put her second in the world all-time lists over 100m and 400m.
Her confidence should be sky high and Kinghorn alludes to having a bit more still in the tank heading into the World Para Athletics Championships this week.
"I hope so," she says. "I'm getting nervous now and hoping I'm doing everything right. I'm going faster each week on the track than I have ever done before.
"I'm hoping I can go a little bit faster, but you don't know what the track is going to be like in London. There it doesn't matter about the times – it is where you finish in the race."
Kinghorn, who is part of a 51-strong British team, will open her campaign in her favoured 200m event at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park on Saturday evening.
She won bronze over the same distance in Doha two years ago and, given her recent world record form, upgrading that to gold this time around could be within her grasp.
"I would love to," she enthuses. "Especially with it being a home world championships. At the end of the day I want to come off the track and know I have given it my all."
Things are looking good on paper, but in typical level-headed manner Kinghorn is cautious about getting too far ahead of herself.
Her biggest rivals include reigning double world and Commonwealth Games champion Angie Ballard from Australia as well as dominant Chinese duo Huang Lisha and Zhou Hongzhuan, who between them swept gold across the board at the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.
Ballard's compatriot and fellow world champion Madison de Rozario, alongside American Chelsea McClammer, who won double silver in Rio, will also be among the contenders in what has become an increasingly competitive T53 class in recent years.
The T53 400m world record of 54.43sec set by Zhou set at the Paralympics last September was usurped by McClammer who clocked 53.32sec, just ahead of Kinghorn's 53.72sec, at the recent Daniela Jutzeler Memorial.
"It is pretty nuts," Kinghorn says. "I got the European record and [McClammer] broke the world record – we both went under the old world record that was set in Rio."
It certainly provided an encouraging benchmark for Kinghorn who reckons she finished at least 50 metres behind Zhou at the Paralympics.
"I have watched back some of my races from Rio and can see how far away I was from the Chinese athletes," she says. "Now I'm very close. That is exciting."
Last year a blood infection cast a shadow over her preparations in the lead-up to Rio, but Kinghorn says there have been no such challenging hurdles to overcome heading into London.
"I've been lucky," she says. "My winter training was great and undisturbed. All of this training [block] has been undisturbed. I'm in really good shape."
While Kinghorn won't be racing at this weekend's Muller Anniversary Games in London, she plans to keep a close eye on proceedings.
"We will be able to see how the track is rolling," she says. "David Weir is racing so his times should tell us whether the track is fast or slow and sticky."
Kinghorn – whose supporters include Harper Macleod, Strathmore, Mattioli Woods, Christopher Ward, Ottobock, Bromakin and Endura – will make her marathon debut in Chicago this autumn with the aim of competing over that distance at Gold Coast 2018 next April.
"I'm not going to think about it until the day before," she jokes. "I will take a week off after London and after that it will be long sessions to try and qualify for the Commonwealth Games."
Paralympic gold medallist hand-cyclist Karen Darke recently let Kinghorn take her bike for a spin. "I had a wee go round the track with it," she says. "That was good fun. It has gears, which was quite nice, but it is completely different because you are lying back instead of up in a sitting position."
Could we see Kinghorn swap athletics for cycling? "Not yet," she laughs. "Maybe in the future."
There have been exciting changes on the home front too. Kinghorn recently left behind her parents Elaine and Neill on the family farm near the Berwickshire village of Gordon to move into her first home in Glasgow with long-term boyfriend Connor.
"It has been beneficial for my training being able to go home at lunchtime, rather than having to get in the car and drive an hour-and-a-half," she says.
"I've been able to do pretty much every session with Ian and have that support there. When I'm training on my own I feel like I'm trying my hardest but when you have someone there you always try that little bit harder."
Kinghorn, though, does admit to some pangs of homesickness.
"I miss being on the farm and being able go out my front door and push for miles and miles," she says. "I can push along the Clyde, but it's not quite the same as pushing round the farm."
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