Flying Dutchwoman Dafne Schippers is a strong contender to emulate compatriot Fanny Blankers-Koen’s golden sprint double from 1948 at next month’s Rio de Janeiro Olympics after a dramatic switch from heptathlon to concentrate on the sprints.
Blankers-Koen won both the 100-200m at the London Games after World War Two as well as the 80m hurdles and then anchored the Dutch in the 4x100 relay.
The tall Schippers, she stands 1.79m (5’10”), always had the potential to be a top sprinter after a record breaking junior career but instead concentrated on the heptathlon.
While good enough to clinch bronze in the heptathlon at the 2013 world championships in Moscow, she abandoned the gruelling multi-discipline event to concentrate on the sprints after the 2014 European championships in Zurich.
Having entered just the sprints to satisfy her own curiosity, she surprised many with winning times of 11.12 in the 100 and 22.03 in the 200 — the second fastest time of the year behind London Olympic champion Allyson Felix.
“There was no way I could have thought that was possible,” said Schippers.
After that, the decision was made to concentrate on just two events and her times since have steadily got quicker.
She is highly fancied to win the 200ms in Brazil after success at last year’s world championships in Beijing and having recorded the best time of 2016 with 21.93 in Oslo at the start of June.
But gold in the 100m is also on the agenda for the 24-year-old after she finished runner-up in the blue riband event in Beijing.
Schippers has discounted her chances in the shorter sprint because of her height, which inhibits her ability to explode out of the blocks.
“The 200m is a little bit better for me because my start is not very good,” she said.
Her rivals, however, will not be fooled by that given how last year in Beijing she powered through the last half of the race to almost catch Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce in the 100 final.
The success, however, has a down side as it has catapulted Schippers, who also writes a food blog and creates recipes, somewhat uncomfortably into the spotlight.
“My world has changed somewhat in recent times,” she said in a recent interview. “Everything I do now is news, everyone has an opinion about me. It has been hard and sometimes tiresome. It has taken a while to find my way in all of that.”
Despite the extra attention, she said her focus was firmly fixed on Rio with “a crazy desire to succeed”. “I’m really relaxed, I’m not nervous about it,” she said.
“Training has gone well and my goal for Rio is to go for the medals.”

Eatons on a double gold mission like no other
Eugene, Oregon: He wears the colours of the United States and she those of Canada, but Ashton Eaton and Brianne Theisen-Eaton will be on a joint mission at the Rio Olympics.
Never before has a married couple won gold medals at the same Olympics while representing different countries and they are determined to change that.
World indoor champions, they enter the Games with the best scores in the world this year — Eaton in the decathlon and Theisen-Eaton in the heptathlon.
“It would be the moonshot,” Eaton, the 28-year-old world record holder and Olympic champion in the 10-event decathlon, said of a golden double.
For Theisen-Eaton, 27, the joy would be completing a nine-year journey.
“The gold medals together would be huge,” the two-time world silver medallist told Reuters. “But I think it is more like finishing that story, closing the book on that journey.
“Since 2007 when both of our careers kind of started and took off, we have trained together and we have been going through every day together.
“The two gold medals would be the cherry on top.”
Small town North Americans — Eaton from Bend, Oregon, and Theisen-Eaton from Humboldt, Saskatchewan, their lives even have a Brazilian connection.
After meeting during Brianne’s college recruiting trip to Oregon, they both competed in the 2007 Pan American Junior Championships in Sao Paulo, sparking a friendship that grew after Brianne joined Ashton at the University of Oregon.
They were married in 2013 and continue to live and train in Oregon.
Eaton’s career has soared with five world records — three indoors and two outdoors — while Theisen-Eaton, 10th in the 2012 London Olympics, will be looking for her first major outdoor title.
Eaton should be ready “for a lot of points” at the Games, their long-time coach Harry Marra told Reuters, but there were no promises of a world record. Sprints and hurdles, as always, will be Eaton’s strengths.
So much so that even with hamstring and quadriceps problems, Eaton’s winning score at the U.S trials, 8,750 points, was higher than the lifetime best of any Rio rival.
“It’s a nice stat,” said Marra, “but it will not make him overconfident.
“You never go into a multi-event (competition) over-confident. If you do, it will probably turn around and bite you somewhere.”
For Theisen-Eaton, handling the pressure of top flight competition while owning the year’s best score will be her biggest challenge.
In a similar scenario at last year’s world championships in Beijing, “I let my mental side get the best of me,” she said and she finished second behind British Olympic gold medallist and two-time world champion Jessica Ennis-Hill.
“Had I even scored a 100 points less than I did at Gotzis (where she set the year’s top score), I still would have won.”
Consistency has always been her trademark, Marra said.
“She is just steady all the way through,” he said.
“If Brianne Theisen-Eaton is steady in Rio, I can guarantee you she’s in the medals. Whether it is the gold, silver, bronze, I don’t know.”