Carl Lewis opens up on Louis Hinchcliffe's journey from broken student to potential Olympic finalist - as he backs his protege to become one of Britain's greatest ever sprinters

Carl Lewis was on holiday in Bali last summer when he received an unexpected message on WhatsApp. The sender was a British student and the text said: ‘Can you fix me?’

‘I had never heard of him,’ admits Lewis about the athlete who contacted him out of the blue hoping for a transfer to the University of Houston, where he is head coach. ‘But I looked him up and then talked to him on the phone.

‘My conversation with him was, “I can fix you if you are willing to work and I think you can make your Olympic team”. I told him that in the first call. There was no guarantee, but I thought that he would have a shot.’

Well, fast forward 11 months and that student, Louie Hinchliffe, will get his shot on Saturday at the British Olympic trials - and Lewis will be in Manchester to support him.

‘I am excited for him,’ the nine-time Olympic champion tells Mail Sport from Houston before travelling to the UK. ‘He is a wonderful young man. He is unique.

‘I think he is going to be one of the greatest sprinters Britain’s ever had and if I said that a year ago, everyone would have thought I was crazy.’

Indeed, when Hinchliffe first messaged Lewis last year, his personal best was just 10.17sec, putting him a lowly 11th in the British rankings in 2023. But the Sheffield sprinter has lowered his best to 9.95sec after moving from Washington State University to work under Lewis at Houston.

That time, which he clocked when he became the first European to win the US collegiate men’s 100m title earlier this month, is the fastest by a Brit this year. Now he must finish in the top two in Saturday night’s final at the Manchester Regional Arena to seal his place in Paris, with national record holder Zharnel Hughes not running because of injury.

‘If he stays focused, he should be in that top two,’ insists Lewis. ‘We are not trying to do something different, we are just trying to do something again. You run 9.95, that will probably get you there. And there has never been an Olympics where someone that ran 9.9 didn’t make the final.’

So, how has Lewis turned a broken student into a potential Olympic finalist?

‘When I got on the phone to him and said, “What needs fixing?”, he talked about his back and his hamstring,’ explains the US sprint and long jump legend, who famously won four gold medals at the Olympics in Los Angeles 40 years ago. ‘Sprinting is technique, its mechanics. So I said, “I can fix your mechanics and if I fix your mechanics, you are not going to get hurt”.

‘He had the buy-in to do something totally different and learn different technique. When he didn’t do it for three days in a row, he had me yelling at him, saying, “Dude, I told you, you want to be healthy, you want me to fix you, well do what I ask you to do”. He respected that and did it.’

Hinchliffe, who studied at Lancaster University before moving to the US in January 2023, first caught the attention of athletics fans in the UK when he ran a wind-assisted 9.84sec in May. In an interview with Mail Sport after that breakthrough run, he poked fun at his own technique, admitting it was not ‘elegant’ and that he ran like he was ‘holding a rugby ball’.

‘We are working on that!’ laughs Lewis. ‘His arms are out way away from his body. We are working on bringing them in.

‘It takes time but he is going to be smoother and he will run faster. We are evolving. We have only had nine months and look at his improvement. He has all the tools. He is going to be great for years.’

As an athlete who really was great for years, Lewis believes his experience can help Hinchliffe deal with the hype around him.

‘That’s part of my job,’ he says. ‘I won nine Olympic gold medals. I won the 100m three times at World Championships and twice at the Olympics. So it’s like, “Dude, I know what to do, I know how to handle it, I know what you are going to go through”.

‘Everything is going so fast for him. That’s my biggest thing, keeping things slowed down, so he doesn’t get distracted.

‘Right after trials, he is coming back to Houston to train. He’s got to stay focused. At the end of the year, we want to say he went to the Olympics, he made the final and he helped Britain win the relay.’

Lewis finds it funny he is now inadvertently helping the British team, given his fierce former rivalry with Linford Christie, who will also be in Manchester this weekend coaching his athletes.

‘I look forward to seeing Linford,’ adds Lewis. ‘We had this big rivalry where we were back and forth. But then you retire and you become a human being, you become a father and a grandfather, and we had a lovely conversation last year at the World Championships in Budapest.

‘It is going to be interesting at the trials because I am there with an athlete trying to win the British trials, whereas I was always trying to beat the British people. It’s a unique space that I never thought I would be in but here we are.

‘The hardest thing about coaching is watching. I still get nervous. It’s like they are kids of yours. I don’t know how my mother did it! But I am looking forward to Louie running well and being a part of the British team.’