“I have no idea what my ceiling is,” says Eugene Amo-Dadzie, AKA the world’s fastest accountant, as he starts to dream about the next chapter of his extraordinary journey and the Paris Olympics. “I have a beautiful story. And I am just going to keep rocking and rolling.”
The old adage is that life begins at 30, but it rarely applies in sport. Yet last June, Amo-Dadzie stunned everyone by crashing through the 10-second barrier for 100m for the first time, before qualifying for his first World Athletics Championships at the age of 31.
He then had to take annual leave from his day job, working at a subsidiary of Berkeley Group, St George plc, to compete in Budapest. More remarkably still, this success came after he quit the sport for the best part of a decade – having run 11.30sec as a child – and having only returned in 2018 after jibes from his mates about wasting his talent.
“I’ve gone from a nine to five to running a nine-point something in the 100 metres,” Amo-Dadzie says. “I’m a civilian. I’m a chartered accountant. And I went from that to the pinnacle of my sport. So my aim is to inspire people who are sitting on their own talents. Because it is never too late to start.”
If Hollywood was writing his scripts, Amo-Dadzie would have ended up with a gold medal in Budapest. That didn’t happen, but he still beat the Olympic champion, Marcell Jacobs, in his individual 100m semi-final before coming within 0.02sec of a world 4x100m relay medal, as he anchored the GB team to fourth. That near miss has merely fuelled his thirst to do even better in Paris and he believes the 4x100m team have every chance of gold. “We got so close at the world championships, so the ambition is there,” he says.
Amo-Dadzie doesn’t rule out marking a mark in the individual 100m either. “My age is an easy thing to poke at and be like ‘surely not’. But Linford Christie was 32 when he won the Olympics,” he says. “Of course I’m saying it a little bit tongue in cheek but that’s the level of confidence I have in what God has given me. I am putting no limits on what I can do in my life.”
Amo-Dadzie is also quick to praise another person of faith, the UK Athletics’ head of sprints, Darren Campbell, for helping him make the transition from Civvy Street to elite athlete. “We have a great working and personal relationship,” he says. “As a sprinter he got to the levels that I’m aspiring to reach. So when one of the GB sprinting GOATs speaks, I listen and learn.”
It helps, too, that last autumn Amo-Dadzie was put on UK Sport’s national lottery-funded world class programme for the first time, meaning he now works as an accountant for three days a week and can spend more time working on his speed and technique. “Believe it or not I got to a world championship last year seeing my coach, Steve Fudge, twice a week,” he says. “Now it’s more like three or four times.”
Amo-Dadzie now also has a sponsor, Carnegie Consulting, a financial services recruiting company. While the major shoe brands are yet to come knocking, he jokes that this will give him the flexibility to trade on his world’s fastest accountant moniker when he races in the summer. “I’ll be doing my own thing and then having a bit of fun,” he says, “Wearing a tie and that kind of thing.”
Mostly, though, he wants to let his running do the talking. “Last year I beat Ferdinand Omanyala, who ran 9.77, making him the ninth quickest man in history, as well as Jacobs,” he says. “So I can beat the top guys. Every sprinter has to back themselves when they hit that start line. And I am no different.”
