One less medal for Great Britain at the Olympics. The Anti-Doping Division of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) confirmed on Friday February 18 that the Britain’s silver medal in the 4x100m relay won at the Tokyo Games had been withdrawn. In question : the positive control during the Olympics of the sprinter “CJ” Ujah, member of the British relay team.
During the British athlete’s doping test carried out last August after the 4x100m relay, prohibited substances, Ostarine and S-23, were detected. Those prohibited steroids are generally used to increase muscle mass.
“I accept the decision of the CAS with sadness”reacted Ujah in a press release published by the English athletics federation, UK Athletics, which specified:“I would like to clarify the fact that I unknowingly consumed a contaminated food supplement and that is the reason why an anti-doping rule was violated during these Tokyo Olympics.”
By confirming the sprinter’s positive test, the Anti-Doping Chamber of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) therefore disqualified CJ Ujah’s results, including the British team’s silver medal on the relay. The sprinter of 27, and his teammates – Zharnel Hughes, Richard Kilty and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake – had taken second place behind Italy and ahead of Canada, which should therefore be back on the second step of the podium and China. As a reminder, the final was played without the big American favorite, eliminated in the playoffs.
As for the other possible sanctions for the Briton, the CAS returns the ball to World Athletics, the international athletics federation, which is “invited to consider any other action in its own jurisdiction and in accordance with its own rules, including the determination of any period of ineligibility”.
It is for the moment the only medal withdrawn for doping at the end of the Tokyo Olympics, an announcement which comes on the same day that the Nigerian sprinter Blessing Okagbare was heavily sanctioned with 10 years for doping, excluded from the Tokyo Olympics. Tokyo ahead of the 100m semi-finals.
This is not the first time that a medal has been withdrawn from a 4x100m relay because one of its members tested positive: this was the case for men in 2008 with Jamaica (gold), in 2012 with the Americans (silver), and, among women, in 2008 with the Russians (gold). Medals were also taken from two sprint stars, Canadian Ben Johnson and American Marion Jones.