Athing Mu: ‘Mentally I wasn’t present. I didn’t enjoy what was happening to me’

800m gold medallist from Tokyo took a break last year for her mental health but is back and focusing on Paris

Grace, gratitude, appreciation," says Athing Mu of her approach to running, which by no small coincidence also happens to be her approach to life. We're talking about learning and growth, about setbacks and what they can teach you, about expectations and when to let them go. About how to take joy from the process in this most brutally unequivocal of sports, where you win or you lose based on fractions of a second.

Things are going to happen," she says with a wisdom beyond her 22 years, via a video link from Los Angeles, where she lives and trains. Say I run 10 more years. In those years, so many things will happen. It's not going to be all smooth sailing. Problems that we have are lessons that we learn."