Britain’s males’s 4x100m relay staff has been stripped of its 2020 Olympic silver medal after CJ Ujah’s failed doping take a look at on the Tokyo Video games was confirmed. The information marks the most important doping scandal in British Olympic historical past, and solely the third time a Workforce GB athlete has misplaced a medal at summer time or winter Video games.
In 1988 Kerrith Brown misplaced his bronze medal in judo on the Seoul Video games after testing optimistic for a banned substance. The skier Alain Baxter misplaced his alpine slalom bronze medal in 2002 after utilizing a Vicks inhaler bought within the US. It later transpired that the identical inhaler purchased within the UK didn’t include the unlawful substance.
The information was confirmed following a listening to on the court docket of arbitration for sport in November however solely revealed on Friday. It discovered that the 27-year-old sprinter did have two banned substances in a urine pattern, ostarine and S-23, that are often called selective androgen receptor modulators that mimic testosterone within the physique.
Ujah had blamed his failed take a look at on a contaminated complement. Nonetheless below the strict legal responsibility guidelines of the World Anti-Doping Company that’s no defence.
In an announcement Ujah mentioned: “I settle for the choice issued by the court docket of arbitration for sport at present with disappointment. I want to make it clear that I unknowingly consumed a contaminated complement and this was the rationale why an anti-doping rule violation occurred on the Tokyo Olympic Video games.
“I sincerely remorse that this has inadvertently led to the forfeiture of the boys’s 4x100m relay staff’s Olympic silver medals on the Tokyo Olympic Video games. I want to apologise to my teammates, their households and assist groups for the affect which this has had on them. That’s one thing I’ll remorse for the remainder of my life.”
The British males’s quartet of Ujah, Zharnel Hughes, Richard Kilty and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake missed out on the 4x100m title by only a hundredth of a second in Tokyo, because the anchor-leg runner Mitchell-Blake was overhauled on the road by Italy’s Filippo Tortu.
Nonetheless, days later it was revealed that Ujah had examined optimistic for ostarine, which is used to deal with muscle losing and osteoporosis, and S‑23, which targets the muscle and bone tissues to advertise muscle progress and bone well being.
The size of Ujah’s ban will now be decided in a future listening to by the Athletics Integrity Unit but it surely could possibly be so long as 4 years.
A spokesperson for UK Athletics mentioned it was in common communication with the athletes involved, however added that it might not be making public touch upon the case till after the World Athletics/AIU course of which can observe on from this Cas final result.
The information signifies that Canada are upgraded to silver behind the gold medallists, Italy, whereas China now take bronze. Britain’s medal tally from the Tokyo 2020 Video games is decreased to 64.
In a strongly worded assertion the British Olympic Affiliation issued an apology to all Ujah’s opponents after he was discovered to have doped. “We have now all the time been unequivocal and constant in our stance in opposition to doping. All athletes, wherever they’re from, should go to the beginning line realizing they’re in clear competitors,” it mentioned.
“It’s with deep sorrow that colleagues and opponents of Ujah weren’t capable of be reassured of this reality in Tokyo. Having spent the previous few years retrospectively awarding quite a few British athletes with medals they need to have received on the day at Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Sochi 2014, we perceive first-hand the damage and loss doping could cause. On behalf of everybody in British sport we unreservedly apologise to the athletes whose second was misplaced in Tokyo as a result of actions of Ujah.
“We’re additionally dissatisfied for the three colleagues of Ujah who, by way of no fault of their very own, will now lose their silver medals.”
