Hudson Smith, Matthew

As a child, he played for the youth teams of the Wolverhampton Football Club, first as a right-back and then as an attacker. Even then, coaches noted its high speed against the background of peers. However, at the age of 10, he changed football to athletics. As Matthew himself recalled, the reason was his lack of concentration in the game, in addition, then it seemed that it would be possible to return back at any time ^[1] .

At 16, he suffered from gangrenous ulcers on his left leg. They were the result of an unknown infection, which doctors still managed to cope with, but not without consequences in the form of a scar just above the ankle ^[2] .

He first attracted attention in 2011, when he finished second in the championship of England among schoolchildren in the 200-meter race. A year later, repeated this success, and in 2013 he played at the Junior European Championship ^[3] . At a distance of 200 meters he won a bronze medal (in the semifinals he showed a personal record of 20.88), after which he became third and in the relay 4x400 meters.

In 2014, he began to focus on running 400 meters. Matthew improved his previous personal record, 48.76, over the course of the season by more than four seconds. In July, at the stage of the Diamond League, he became the second athlete in the history of Great Britain under the age of 20 to overcome the distance faster than 45 seconds ^[4] . Thanks to this success, he selected for the Commonwealth Games , where at the last stage he led the England team to victory in the relay 4x400 meters. A week and a half later, at the European Championships in 400 meters, he lost only to compatriot Martin Rooney and won a silver medal. In the relay, Hudson-Smith fled in the second stage, and the British eventually became champions.

The 2015 season was almost completely missed due to a back injury ^[5] .

He returned to competitive activity in May 2016 and soon won his country's championship for the first time in his career. At the European Championships, he became a bronze medalist in the relay, although he left first in the fourth stage by a small margin and was in the lead for most of the distance.

In the semi-final of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, he set a personal record of 44.48 and became the only representative of Europe to qualify for the 400-meter final. Matthew failed to compete for medals: he finished in last, eighth, place.

He is a student at Worcester University , where he is educated in the field of physical education and sports ^[6] .

• Official Matthew Hudson-Smith Website
• Matthew Hudson-Smith Profile at The Power of 10
• Matthew Hudson-Smith - profile on the IAAF website
• Matthew Hudson-Smith profile at all-athletics.com
• Matthew Hudson-Smith profile on European Athletics Association website