Who’s the next Bolt? You can roll the dice...

BRITISH SPRINT STAR UJAH WANTS TO BE CROWNED THE NEW KING … DESPITE USAIN’S SNUB!

CJ UJAH is out to break records, but there is also one he would quite like to set straight. It concerns Usain Bolt and the surprisingly cold shoulder he may have shown to Britain’s hottest sprint hope during the World Championships in London last August.

‘We didn’t chat,’ said Ujah. ‘I don’t know if it was because of headlines that he maybe saw before. Some said something like, “CJ Ujah is going to overthrow Bolt”, but I didn’t say that.

‘I said he was not the same Bolt that he was years ago and that the 100 metres was more open. But it got misconstrued and I don’t know if he saw it and thought, “This little kid is arrogant”. In previous years we were talking so I think he did see it.

‘When I next see him I will talk to him about that, put it right.’

Snub from a legend or not, it would be difficult to dismiss Ujah as a ‘little kid’ these days. Not after the excellent year he has had and his potential for more.

In one track season, this 23-year-old Londoner progressed from being a talented, sub-10sec runner to the Diamond League 100m champion, with an exceptional five wins on that elite circuit, which included beating the world champion Justin Gatlin twice and Andre de Grasse. That was deeply impressive but being part of Britain’s 4x100m relay World Championship gold medal team in London was very much the crowning achievement.

It was telling that in a recent interview with Sportsmail, Gatlin was convinced Ujah will become a major medal contender at Olympic level in the post-Bolt era. Ujah’s review of last season is a little more understated.

‘Fun — pretty good,’ he said. ‘I find myself thinking about London at weird times and I just smile. That relay, winning with my team-mates, was just, well, wow! I have it saved on my

YouTube favourites and I’ll go over it and it all comes back.’

The clip shows Ujah putting the team in front on leg one, Adam Gemili motoring clear on the second and Danny Talbot sending Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake into a tight lead over America’s Christian Coleman and Jamaica’s Bolt.

Then bedlam as Bolt hits the deck holding his hamstring and Mitchell-Blake beats Coleman at the line, all while Steve Cram goes into meltdown on commentary. ‘I find myself listening to Crammy and it takes me back there,’ said Ujah. ‘I remember the camera flashes, Bolt on the floor, Nethaneel shouting.

‘To match that night will be hard even if I win Olympic gold in Tokyo. I’m actually going to frame everything from that night — the medal, the shoes I wore on the podium, my number.

‘But it’s funny, I’ve been a bit annoyed because I didn’t hit record on my Virgin box that night. I need to ask the BBC for the full show, so I can watch all the build-up, right through to the race and afterwards in the studio. Instead I have this clip which is a few minutes long. It’s not enough.’

An interesting aspect about Ujah’s role in the relay drama is that he was involved at all. His inclusion illustrates the psychological progress he made over the last year, having been snubbed for a place in the 4x100m relay final at the Rio Olympics because the selectors had doubts over his frame of mind after his semi-final defeat in the individual 100m. He had missed out on the Olympic final by 0.01sec. A year on, in London, he missed the final by 0.02 after an underwhelming semi-final.

‘I knew I couldn’t beat myself up like I had done in Rio,’ he said. ‘In Rio, I felt I wasn’t in the best place and I feel that is why they didn’t want me in the final. Looking back, it was a fair shout.

‘This time I didn’t want to make the same mistake. Don’t get me wrong, I was gutted with how I did in the semi but I said to myself, “Don’t repeat what happened in Rio”.

‘I got up the next day and focused on the team, not me. What happened in the 100m wasn’t nice but I believe everything happens for a reason and I think when my time comes it will happen big.’

In the short term, that meant redemption with his relay win. In the longer term, it means he might well be in the shake-up now that Bolt has moved on.

His personal best of 9.96 will need to come down and he needs to prove he can replicate his Diamond League temperament in the major individual events.

But out of his training base in Arizona the signs are promising. ‘You can roll the dice on who is the next man,’ said Ujah. ‘No one will dominate like Bolt — so it is time for the rest of us to step up.’

‘I think about London at weird times and I smile’