It did not take long for Britain’s feelgood factor to be tainted
Ujah’s positive test, after the high of Tokyo medal haul, could be most consequential violation in GB Olympic history
Adapting a piece of homespun wisdom, the Italians like to say that those with glass tiles should not throw stones at their neighbours. It is a message that Giovanni Malago, president of his country’s Olympic committee, must be tempted to shout from the rooftops now that CJ Ujah has tested positive for two banned substances.
In Tokyo, he had described British doubts about Marcell Jacobs, a surprise champion over 100metres, as “embarrassing and unpleasant”. A week later, he discovers that the lead-off man for Britain’s sprint relay quartet, sore at being pipped to gold by their Italian rivals, is at the centre of a drugs bust. For the victors, the irony is delicious.
For the vanquished, Ujah’s ignominy could hardly be more embarrassing, or more serious. Before Team GB have even had a chance to recover from jet lag, their headline achievement of 65 Tokyo medals, equalling the haul at London 2012, threatens to be downgraded. The rules set by World Athletics are unambiguous: if an athlete competing in a relay has committed a doping violation, all team-mates automatically forfeit their medals.
Usain Bolt found this out the hard way, his nine Olympic golds reduced to eight when retested samples by Nesta Carter, who ran the third leg for Jamaica at Beijing 2008, came back positive. But this was a punishment that took nearly nine years to be confirmed. For Ujah, the journey from silver medallist to alleged doper has not even lasted a week.
If the 4x100m team were to be stripped of their silvers because of Ujah, it would count as arguably the most consequential doping violation by a British athlete in Olympic history. While the country has had its fair quotient of invidious headlines in this area, from Linford Christie’s two-year ban for nandrolone to Christine Ohuruogu’s three whereabouts failures, very few have occurred within the context of the Olympics. To date, the highest-profile infraction by a British Olympian had been the vexed case of Alain Baxter, stripped of a slalom bronze at the 2002 Winter Games, when a failed test was blamed on his inhaler use.
Ujah’s positive results for S-23, a substance favoured by bodybuilders, and ostarine, an anabolic agent said by the UK Anti-doping Agency to produce similar performance benefits to testosterone, open up uncharted territory.
Never before has Britain had to relinquish a silver medal due to a doping offence at the Games. Last Friday night, in the recesses of Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium, the men’s relay foursome had presented a united front, despite their dejection at losing to Italy by one hundredth of a second. Richard Kilty insisted that he would come to regard his medal as one of the proudest moments of his life. Latest developments illustrate why such predictions might be premature.
That evening, Ujah cut a figure of quiet resolve. “We’re changing the perspective of the country,” he said. “We’re a 4x100 team that wins a medal at every major championships.” Theirs is a consistency that, due to the charges made against him by the Athletics Integrity Unit, now stands to be undone. The shock unleashed within British Athletics can hardly be overestimated.
In a team not short of prominent egos – Kilty had depicted Italy’s gold as the nation’s finest hour since the Roman Empire – Ujah has tended to be the quiet one. His most radical intervention for Tokyo, he explained last month, was to listen to meditation audiobooks and to incorporate the tenets of Zen Buddhism in his sprinting preparations. He will need all those calming techniques as the fallout from the AIU’S announcement intensifies.
The independent body, created in 2017, was a core element of Lord Coe’s reform programme when he took over as World Athletics president, understanding the dire need for the sport to repair its image after a spate of doping outrages.
For the AIU to release Ujah’s adverse analytical findings within a week of the relay final is a sign it is fulfilling its remit as a bulwark against further scandals.
From a British perspective, the move could scarcely be bleaker. It was just last Sunday that Mark England, Team GB’S chef de mission, had acclaimed the 65-medal bounty, including 22 golds, as the “Miracle of Tokyo”. The feat, he argued, was about nothing more than the triumph of British athletes’ resilience in the face of the most arduous circumstances. The shadow over Ujah suggests, sadly, that only the credulous believe in miracles.