When a knee injury forced Lashinda Demus to withdraw from contention for the US team at the Rio Olympics, the former world champion hurdler, who had hoped to better her silver in the 400m event at the 2012 London games, was devastated. “The athlete over these four years hasn’t come close to the athlete that I knew myself to be,” she wrote on her blog last June.
Injury struck again this year when Demus tore two ligaments in an ankle, putting her out of international competition. But this time the 34-year-old had a back-up plan to ease the pain: going to business school to learn how to start her own company.
Demus had been invited to enrol on a two-and-a-half week course, called Next Step: Transition to Business, created by Dartmouth…
