Just days after sweeping up two more bronzes at the UK Athletics Championships, Imani-Lara spoke to the News about America, creative writing and the importance of sacrifice.
Imani-Lara is driving back to Peckham from a physio session. Although she lives in Croydon now, she was raised in Peckham, attended St Joseph’s Primary School, and is a self-proclaimed “south London girl”.
The 24-year-old said: “I’m actually driving to see my grandmother and show her my medals. I often go back to see her. I want to settle down in Peckham – it’s where the best memories of my childhood are.”
But in 2022 she’s hardly seen her birthplace. In December, fresh from her Tokyo Olympics 2020 triumph, where she won bronze in the 4 x 100m relay, she flew across the Atlantic to start training in Atlanta, Georgia.
“I felt like I needed a change in my coaching environment. After the Olympics, you feel like asking ‘where are you going next in your career?'” she said.
She’s been working with her new coach Stuart McMillan and says she enjoyed her time in the USA: “From an American perspective, they have such great self-belief. Everyone wants to make it which is inspiring.
“They’re very upfront and the British way of doing things isn’t like that. In America, people are very upfront with how they feel.”
She also said the lack of food regulations in America meant she had to be very careful with what she ate, which she said was “draining”. Some foods contain steroids, a risk for athletes who are subject to stringent drug testing.
But the training paid off. At July’s UK Athletics Championships in Manchester, Imani swept up bronze medals in both the 100 and 200 metres. It’s an achievement made even more impressive given she only started training for the 200 metres last year.
She has now been selected for England’s Commonwealth Games team in Birmingham. Imani said it will have “a special place” in her heart because it’s on home soil.
Off the track, Imani is a keen writer. When she was forced to isolate after getting pinged at the Tokyo Olympics, she used the time to pen a play called ‘Armour of Gaza’.
The play explored her journey from school sports day runner to professional athlete and was performed as part of Knockdown, a weekend of live performance held in Peckham in 2021.
Imani says being a professional athlete has come with sacrifices but that it’s been worth it: “We don’t drink, we don’t eat bad food. But because I’ve been training for so long, I’ve got used to the benefit of sacrifice and I’m starting to see the benefits of what I’ve been doing for the last few years. I don’t wish I was doing anything else.”