Richard Kilty on son’s heartbreaking reaction after Tokyo Olympic medal stripped

02/21/2022

Team GB sprinter Richard Kilty has revealed his five-year-old son’s heartbreaking reaction to having his Olympic silver medal from the Tokyo Games stripped.

Kilty was part of Great Britain’s 4x100m sprint relay team that won silver in Japan last year.

However, the 32-year-old and his GB teammates had their Olympic achievement taken away from them six months on, after CJ Ujah tested positive for banned substances Ostarine and S-23.

A decision made by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) last week confirmed that Great Britain would have their silver medals taken away, following Ujah’s violation.

Since the devastating news, Kilty has revealed the heartbreaking reaction from his five-year-old son when hearing about the decision.

Kilty, as quoted by The Sun , said: “When I finally brought the medal back he was so proud of it. He carries it around. I think he’ll probably understand it more in a year or two, when I can explain to him properly.

“My son goes to school now. My nieces, nephews, everyone comes up to me and even the kids at school say: ‘Dad has had his medal taken.’

“I don't even like dropping him off at school now because every parent in the schoolyard is talking to me. At times, I didn’t even want to leave the house. It was just exhausting trying to explain myself.

“And I had no idea because we didn’t hear nothing from CJ. He didn’t tell us. I didn’t hear anything. It was all confusing.”

Following last week’s confirmation, Ujah sent out an apology to Team GB and more closely his relay teammates, Kilty, Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake and Zharnel Hughes.

This however was not enough for the 32-year-old, who went on to admit he would never forgive his teammate for his positive test.

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Kilty said: “Now he’s [Ujah] made that mistake I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive him because me, Zharnel and Nethaneel have lost a medal at the hands of his mistakes.

“CJ is ultimately going to be the one who is going to get banned himself, it’s affecting his own career. But again we’ve worked so hard these last six years.

“To finally reach the pinnacle and win an Olympic medal, and then lose it because one person has just been sloppy and reckless with what's gone into their body. It's heartbreaking and devastating.”

Kilty also revealed that the GB sprint team had a “zoom call from CJ roughly six weeks ago and that was it.”

Following the news, British Olympic bosses expressed their fury and BOA chief executive Andy Anson called for drugs cheats to be banned from ever representing their country.

He admitted: “If it was down to me personally someone found guilty of a doping offence would never compete for Team GB again.

“I’m not sure legally I’d always win that battle but that’s how I feel about it. We’ve got to feel like that, right? We’ve got to be able to sit here and say we’re doing something about it.”

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