“There is an element of my journey that doesn’t really make sense,” says Eugene Amo-Dadzie, AKA the world’s fastest accountant, as he relives the astonishing story of how he reached his first World Athletics Championships at the age of 31. “It’s not very logical. It’s very rare, very unique. I want people to look at it, be inspired by it, and know that it’s never too late.”
Until 2018, Amo-Dadzie’s sporting journey was as unremarkable as thousands of others, up and down the land. He was a talented athlete as a kid, capable of running 11.3sec for 100m with little formal training. But then life, university and his job working as a senior accountant got in the way. But in the winter of 2018, he suddenly decided to give track and field a whirl.
“I used to sit at home and watch championships thinking: ‘if I’d trained I could have made it’,” he says. “I was content to be the guy that could have done it. That was my story for years. One fateful day it all changed when I was literally playing football adjacent to an athletics track. My really good friends, who I went to school with, knew I was quick. For years, they would say to me: ‘you wasted your talent’. I just took the abuse, it was what it was. But that fateful day, God flicked a switch in my head.
“The 100m was going on, I think somebody won in 11.3sec. My mate turned over to me and says: ‘Why did you never try, why have you never given this thing a go?’ At that moment, I thought: ‘What do I have to lose?’ And, thank God, I sit here now, world’s fastest accountant, about to be on the world stage.”
Within a year Amo-Dadzie had reached the 100m semi-finals of the British championships. And under the tutelage of Steve Fudge, who used to train Adam Gemili and James Dasaolu, he steadily progressed season-by-season until a stunning 100m run of 9.93sec in June put him fourth on the all-time list in Britain and made him the 17th quickest man in the world this year.
But unlike most British athletes at these world championships, Amo-Dadzie still has to fit training around working a full 9-5 job – and use annual leave to compete in Budapest. “I work for a subsidiary of Berkeley Group, St George plc. They have been phenomenal, honestly. I’m always on top of my workload, I never slip behind. But if I need to jet off to somewhere in Europe to race at short notice, they are very accommodating of it all.
“I won’t lie and say that it doesn’t get tough at times, and sometimes you do feel like you are stretched quite thin, but my missus is incredible.”
A first British vest arrived this March at the European Indoor Championships, where he reached the 60m semi-finals, but it was that sub-10sec run in Graz in June that was the real gamechanger. Amo-Dadzie not only has an agent now, he also sometimes get recognised in the streets. “It’s really cool, I’m embracing all of it. It’s very, very different but I’m keeping my feet on the ground.”
And, having qualified from the British trials in Manchester, Amo-Dadzie suddenly finds himself at the world championships with sprinters with countless Olympic and world medals to their name. “I think there’s maybe an element of ‘who is this guy’ but every time we have conversations, but they find the whole world’s fastest accountant thing really funny. So it’s all love. But yeah, when we need to go to war, we go to war.”
Indeed Amo-Dadzie believes that having multiple focuses to his life, including a two-year-old daughter has helped him get an edge over his rivals. “I’m able to lock in and perform when I need to but I’m doing so very much from a place of relaxation, a place of fun, I’m enjoying myself when I’m out there. I can switch off. I’ll do my track thing, then I put that day and I’m going home to play with my little girl. I’m going home to go on a date with my wife, I’m getting home to get some work done, I’m on a school governor’s meeting.”
Amo-Dadzie prefers not to be drawn on how he might do in Budapest, although he does promise that he will try his hardest and “have some fun out there”. A place in the final is perhaps not beyond him, if he can improve his personal best. But whatever happens, he hopes his story will inspire others to chase their dreams.
“If you have a bit of belief and faith, it is never really too late to pick up the passion of something you always really wanted to do. If I can do what I’ve done, by the grace of God, then why can’t you?”
