I CAN BEAT BOLT
British sprint star Ujah is eager to take famous scalp
CHIJINDU UJAH is lounging on a rooftop bar in Monte Carlo, as supermodels frolic in the swimming pool and a cluster of £100million yachts bob around on the Mediterranean beyond, all the while contemplating the possibility of beating Usain Bolt in London tomorrow night.
But do not make the mistake of suggesting he is living his dream. Because the 21- year- old sprinter, one of only six Britons to break 10 seconds for 100 metres and the youngest British champion over the distance since Mark Lewis-Francis in 2002, insists it is just the start.
‘When I was pretty young I used to see famous athletes all the time at meets and people would ask why I wasn’t taking pictures of them like everyone else,’ he says. ‘But I felt I belonged there. I was never fazed by celebrity.
‘I looked up to Asafa Powell (the former 100m world record-holder) as a child but I wouldn’t go up to him and ask for a picture because it’s business when you’re here and I know what I’m capable of. I want to have someone look at me like that.
‘I don’t really take being British champion now as anything special because I’ve got to race against the best in the world. As a British team going forward we have to realise yes, it’s great being the best in our country, but you have to raise your game on the world stage.’
If last year provided Ujah’s breakthrough — his 9.96sec made him the third quickest British man in history — then this season he is consolidating his place among the sprinting elite.
In a superb Monaco Diamond League race last week, he ran 10.08sec to take fourth place behind Olympic medallists Justin Gatlin and Tyson Gay — both of whom have failed drugs tests in their careers — and France’s Jimmy Vicaut, Europe’s fastest man.
Ujah’s time was quicker than Bolt has run this year and the Briton is relishing the prospect of facing the world’s fastest man at the Sainsbury’s Anniversary Games. Even in his current
Taking it easy: Ujah below-par state, Bolt, who is returning from a knee injury, would be a huge scalp for Ujah.
‘I was having a word with a number of athletes and we were saying now’s the best time to meet Bolt,’ says Ujah with a grin. ‘He’s a bit vulnerable so it will be good for the field to meet him when he’s not in the shape he has been and we’re confident.
‘Psychologically it’s a big thing to beat him. He’s won so many titles but you can’t be thinking about that when you line up next to him. If I can beat him now it will give me the world of confidence.’
It will also be another step towards convincing his father Andy, an engineer whose family moved to Britain from Nigeria when he was 10 years old, that ‘CJ’ made the right choice to pursue sprinting.
‘I used to play football for my local club and was pretty good,’ said Ujah. ‘Dad was not too much impressed about football and he didn’t like the idea of me going pro.
‘When I was doing athletics he thought, “Oh, it’s just a hobby”, and I set my heart on showing him that it wasn’t just a little thing on the side. He got a letter in the post when I was 15 saying I’d been selected for the World Youth Championships, then it was World juniors next year, and European juniors after that. ‘ Basically I’ve been on every national team since 2011 so he’s come round to the idea. ‘ But my family are very focused on education and not sport. When my uncle was younger, Arsenal academy came to scout him and my grandad was a doctor and he was so fixed on education and he told them to go away and said, “My son is not interested”.’
When Ujah first began taking sprinting seriously at 15, he tried to remove all potential distractions from his life. That meant giving up his spot on the right wing for his local football team and forgoing his ambition to be a professional rapper.
Now he listens to less hiphop and more to motivational speakers, and still lives with his mum Sylvia five minutes’ walk from Lee Valley Athletics Centre in north London, where he is coached by Jonas Tawiah-Dodoo.
‘I like this guy Eric Thomas, who does a speech “I am a champion”, and I love to listen to (former Olympic 100m gold medallist) Donovan Bailey and (basketball legend) LeBron James; different idols speak about how they feel they rose to where they are.
‘Basically they preach about talent and if you stick at what you do you can be one of the greatest.
‘Sometimes when you go through a struggle — injuries and stuff — I remind myself that I have to be totally fearless. I come back and teach my training group what I have learned and that’s why you see Ojie Edoburun ( the 19-year- old who became 100m European junior champion last week) doing so well.’
Ujah faces competition for the title of hottest property in British men’s sprinting, not just from Adam Gemili, who is likely to miss next month’s World Championships in Beijing with a hamstring injury, but European 100m champion James Dasaolu, World Indoor 60m gold medallist Richard Kilty and also Zharnel Hughes, who recently switched allegiance from Anguilla to Great Britain.
That move drew criticism from Kilty, who said fans would prefer to see homegrown talent representing Great Britain and tweeted: ‘All sprinters I’ve spoken to in the team feel exactly the same.’ But Ujah belongs to a different school of thought.
‘Some people may not like it but I think it’s great,’ he says. ‘I was talking to (world 400m champion) Christine Ohuruogu in the medal call room for the British Championships in Birmingham and I was saying we need to have these people because we don’t want to be winning easily in Britain and then going to World Championships and Olympics and not making finals.
‘So if you’ve got a guy who can go sub-20sec in the 200m I think it is good preparation for the worlds.
‘I feel the 200m has been a bit easy in terms of running 20.5sec and you’re on the plane and the best guys in the world are running 20.20sec and lower. We need guys out of their comfort zone.’
CJ Ujah will compete against the world’s top sprinters, including Usain Bolt, at the Sainsbury’s Anniversary Games in London tomorrow. Tickets are available via britishathletics.org.uk
“You can’t think about all of the titles he’s won”