The former Olympic Stadium looms large over its athletics warm-up track, a reminder of the high point of CJ Ujah’s career.
It was there he won a surprise world gold in the 4x100metre relay back in 2017, four years before an Olympic silver at the Tokyo Games, only for him and the rest of the team to be denied following his positive test for two banned substances.
The return has been low-key — two track meetings at Lee Valley, his local track, and tonight’s at Stratford, the warm-up track where he fine-tuned his preparations for that London 2017 gold, a last race before next weekend’s trials for the World Championships.
The 29-year-old is well aware there are some who might regard him as a cheat, after testing positive for ostarine and S-23. He was able to prove it came from an amino acid he bought from Amazon for £10, and the Athletics Integrity Unit concluded it “was not intentional but as a result of his ingestion of a contaminated supplement”.
“You can’t change everyone’s opinion,” he said. “People have said to me, ‘You’ll still have a hard time when you return’, but I’m over the darkest day — that was the day I actually found out.”
When the news broke via an email, he assumed it was a spam message. But before he knew it, reports of his failed drugs test were all over social media.
“At that point, I’m still like, ‘This is a mistake, we’ll clear this up’,” he recalled before reality set in.
He remembers his mum crying at the news. “It’s been horrible,” he admitted. “My mum said she didn’t even want to go to work.
“I remember for six weeks straight I didn’t want to leave the house. And when I did leave the house, it was at a time where Covid masks weren’t applied but I was still wearing one to cover my face. I felt ashamed, I couldn’t explain myself.”
Breaking the news to the family was hard, so too the sprinters with whom he had won Olympic silver: Zharnel Hughes, Richard Kilty and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake, all made to return their medals.
He gathered them together on a Zoom call before official news of the decision was announced.
“Imagine telling your team-mates you’re going to lose your medal,” he said.
“If I could, it would have been in person, seeing their faces and reactions is the right thing to do. If I was in their corner, I would want to knock me out, I totally get it. The way they reacted… they reacted humbly. They were understanding — and it would be hard to be understanding in that moment. At the end of the day, it could be some people’s last Olympics.”
Ujah has lost count of the number of times he has kicked himself at the stupidity of his mistake of buying a supplement online without doing the proper checks.
From now on, any supplements he takes, he says, he “will double-check, triple-check” even. He also wants to help others avoid the same pitfalls.
As for his own situation, he said: “I know how athletes have been tainted in the past, but it was a careless mistake. You have to own that but know it wasn’t intentional. I can walk around with my conscience clear.”
Ujah has continued to train amid it all, away from his coach, training group or any UKA-affiliated track under the terms of the ban. Instead, he has been confined to public tracks and only being able to train outdoors come snow, rain or cold until the ban ended three weeks ago.
“It’s been hard graft, but hopefully it’ll be worth it,” he said. “You get some of those moments where it’s hard, cold, raining, and you’ve just got to tell yourself those are more important than the moments you actually like. The stuff you don’t like, the nitty-gritty, that’s the stuff I’ve made sure I learned to love.”
His love for the sport never diminished amid it all. In fact, on the eve of his third race back, he has an even greater appreciation of it than ever.
“This isn’t an ideal situation and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy,” he said. “But it’s given me more
hunger and determination. I’ve still got so much love for the sport. I will not take a moment for granted. I think I’ll love it even more once I get out there and compete.”
