Dina Asher-Smith is up and running. The concern ahead of her summit assault this weekend is the multitude of women who are up and running considerably faster.
We have only seen the heats, of course. And it’s true the sole imperative of the first round is progress, which she attained on Friday with an 11.07sec run to reach the 100m semi-finals on Saturday evening.
But there are performances that save gas and there are those that trigger soft alarms. This felt a little more like the latter, less because of what Asher-Smith did and more because of what she didn’t do.
Dina Asher-Smith is up and running in Tokyo, although there is slight cause for concern
The British sprinter finished second in her 100 metre sprint heat ahead of Saturday's semi-final
Once again, as has been the theme of her build up to this three-pronged medal assault, there was no trail of fire behind her time. No marker, no warning shot, no sign that she can clock the sort of numbers she will need to get on this podium following the final later on Saturday.
None of that. All we saw was the joint 11th quickest run – slower than her GB team-mate Daryll Neita - and a second-placed finish in her heat which, irrelevant as that might be, was still her first defeat in 13 races this season. While she was right to point to the extra ‘level’ she has in her weaponry, the question is whether one extra increment is enough to match the brilliance of some of her rivals.
Of the 10 women who went faster, there were three in particular who sent a boom echoing around this empty stadium in Tokyo. The quickest was Marie-Josee Ta Lou, of the Ivory Coast, who won her heat in 10.78sec into a slight headwind - no one has ever gone quicker in an Olympic heat.
The 25-year-old was the 11th-fastest and her second-place finish is her first defeat in 13 races
Of equal concern is the pace shown by Marie-Josee Ta Lou (L) and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (R)
Then, more ominously, were the 10.82sec and 10.84sec bombs dropped respectively by the reigning Olympic champion Elaine Thompson-Herah and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, the 2008 and 2012 gold medallist. What ought to concern the hierarchy of UK Athletics, for whom Asher-Smith is their one bona fide star, is that those two Jamaicans eased up so much before the line that they were effectively jogging.
Whether it is shoe technology, a super-fast track or something else, it is possible that Florence Griffith-Joyner’s
