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‘IT’S CRUSHING NOT TO HAVE MY TWIN WITH ME’

Anthony France and Lizzie Edmonds

SPRINTER Laviai Nielsen today told of her devastation that her twin sister isn’t competing alongside her at Tokyo 2020.

Leytonstone-born Nielsen, 25, said she always had a “healthy” rivalry with Lina, a hurdler, with each sibling, below, wanting to go one better than the other.

But while Laviai is in tomorrow’s 4x400m relay heats, her injured sister is “completely crushed” at home in Islington. Lina admitted she “fell short” of her “goal in life” to make the Olympics by crashing into a hurdle during a tournament in July.

Laviai said being in Japan with her sister would have made her dreams come true. She said: “I’ve never turned to Lina and said: ‘I’m going to beat you today.’ It’s kind of, ‘I want you to do well, but I want to do better’. In terms of my sister and I, it’s a healthy competitiveness. When were we were growing up, we wondered who could run for the longest. We’d just run laps and laps until one dropped out.”

The athletes are also both signed to Storm modelling agency and have shot for Vogue. But Laviai will put that to the back of her mind, adding: “I’m definitely going for a medal but I don’t want to jinx it by saying what it is.”

She added that she came out of lockdown a better athlete, saying: “Every year you learn something new, whether it’s misery or a setback. Sometimes when you’re on the starting line, it’s not just about the training. You look back at everything you went through.

I’m so proud of being a Londoner.”

News Olympics Tokyo

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2021-08-04T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-08-04T07:00:00.0000000Z

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