Fourth at the Rio 2016 Olympics, the USA-born Brit had to rebuild her career after a ruptured Achilles and ultimately enjoyed a season to remember in 2022. The highlight was third place at the Alexander Stadium behind Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan (12.30) and Devynne Charlton of the Bahamas (12.58).

Commonwealth Games, Birmingham, August 7, 2022, 100m hurdles, bronze, 12.59 

Rio was a big one, my first Olympics, going in as the underdog and not really knowing what to expect. And it brought a lot of emotion. But in 2017 my biggest injury happened, almost as soon as I turned professional. After running at NCAA level, I’d just got a contract with Adidas when I ruptured my Achilles maybe two months later. All I could think was: “This is terrible, what am I supposed to do?”

The doctors said: “A lot of people don't come back from this. You probably just want to end your career now so that you don't set yourself up for discouragement.” But I didn't want to accept that. “I'm still 22 years old. I feel like I have a lot in the tank. I don't want to retire yet”. And my religious faith played a very big part, to help me continue to trust the process.

The biggest thing was that it's a process. You have to trust it. But you also need to just pay attention to small details. In order to get back my speed and my strength, I had to start from square one. I literally could not walk properly, so I had to learn the basics of walking again and the basics of being able to jog again. And it just took such a long time.

I was training as if from scratch. I'd never done this before, and I changed my mindset. That helped me, rather than getting frustrated, to use this as a building block to come back even stronger.

But it was a rollercoaster. That was 100 per cent how I felt. One day things were progressing, and then I'd get discouraged again, then happy again, then sad again. Being able to qualify for the Doha 2019 world championships was a blessing. I almost didn’t. But, once I got there, I was frustrated that I didn't make it to the final.

It was just more about changing my perspective, how this was going to be a journey, and everything was not going to be linear. That helped me to take the good and take the bad as the process went on.

The biggest change that came out of it all was strength. I used to hate strength training. I hated lifting weights. But I couldn't do anything outside of that when I was injured so I decided, since this is the only thing I could do, I was going to do it to the best of my ability. I did not realise that that was the missing piece to achieve some of the times I wanted to run.  I just grinded really hard to get back to myself. Eventually I was able to come back and peak in 2022.

It was a little bit weird that season because it was the first year since my sister Tiffany [Porter] retired. I was so used to training with her, and I definitely missed her. She was so much fun, and we were both super competitive. But she was there in spirit, watching from the sidelines, and I would always talk to her right before and right after each race.

It was a crazy five or six weeks because we had the World Championships in Oregon, Commonwealths in Birmingham, then Europeans in Munich all one after another. I didn't do as many meets leading up into it because I wanted to keep my legs fresh and we took the load off training.

My focus that year was incredible. We made sure to be really intentional with timings, how to use one championship to help the other championships, and that made a really big difference for me. Starting off in Oregon with a British record, and being in the race where the world record was broken by Tobi Amusan, helped a lot. Being around greatness and running my fastest time, but knowing it's still not enough because somebody else just ran the world record. I finished fifth unfortunately, but I was close.

I always went into every race thinking I could win a medal. It definitely was a bit discouraging when I didn't hit the goals I wanted sometimes, but it helped keep me on my toes. I never felt relaxed but I also didn't feel stressed. I took it as “this is my potential”.

The Commonwealths felt like a mini-Olympics. Honestly, it was my favourite championships I'd been to. I loved how everybody was really rooting for their own country. I felt very connected to Great Britain, and it was a really good experience in terms of the environment and that athletics was such a big deal. I know I got some negative comments about being born and raised in the United States and representing the UK – I still do to this day – but, at the same time, I just really loved the overall support that I received.

In one of the prelims, somebody fell right next to me and I had no idea. I was just going to stay focused on my lane and that got me through to the finish line. It really helped me in the Commonwealth final. And then Devynne Charlton out-dipped me. That was just one-hundredth of a second. But I needed to run my race, and it made a difference between me and fourth.

But the experiences with all the memories I received from fans in Birmingham still stand out, now I’ve retired, from people that really made the experience enjoyable. And honestly, it was like that at all the competitions. I really love my competitive nature but it helped me remember my athletics career as a really good experience.

 As told to Mark Woods