MEDAL WOULD BE A PRICELESS GEM
ADAM GEMILI knows just how important this year’s Olympics could determine how the rest of life pans out.
Gemili, 27, came so close to a 200metres bronze medal at the 2016 Rio Games after a photo-finish (below) confirmed France’s Christophe Lemaitre pipped him to the line by one-thousandth of a second.
Since then the Londoner has been fuelled by that disappointment with the Tokyo Olympics being his main goal. When news broke last year that he would have to wait until 2021 to get his chance, he was devastated.
It took him some time to get back on track – largely due to the pandemic playing havoc with his training and competition schedule.
But Gemili has used the extra year to begin thinking about life after sport and knows a medal in Tokyo will make a massive difference to his future aspirations.
He said: “Last year was frustrating because I was in really good shape.
“I was so on it and for everything to be taken away so quickly, you sort of lose your purpose. I need to have something I’m working towards, otherwise I don’t do anything.
“It made me think a lot about life after sport as well. I’m 27 so I don’t know how many more years I’m going to be doing this.
“Hopefully many, but I’ve got to make sure I’m not twiddling my thumbs for a couple years trying to figure out what I want to do. In sport, especially, if you want to do something afterwards then it’s about your medals and who you are.
“You have to establish yourself enough, so for me this is a really big opportunity to win an Olympic medal and I believe I can.”
Gemili, (above) a Muller Rice Ambassador, would like to take up a governance role in sport after hanging up his spikes.
He has faith he can help revive interest in athletics in a year which he believes has hampered the next generation.
“I believe that’s where I can make a big difference to athletes,” he added. “We’re not seeing that massive engagement like we had after London 2012. “The only way young athletes will want to get into the sport is that they will look at the people being successful like the Katarinas (Johnston-Thompson), the Dinas (Asher-Smith) – the people who are medalling and they think, ‘oh she’s from only down the road, I can do that’”