(Reuters) – British sprinter Richard Kilty said he missed out on sending his son to school with an Olympic medal because team mate Chijindu Ujah failed to adhere to rules that would have prevented his positive dope test and their Tokyo silvers being stripped.
Britain were stripped of the men’s 4x100m relay silver medal after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) upheld Ujah’s anti-doping rule violation on Friday.
Ujah and his team mates Kilty, Zharnel Hughes and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake finished second behind Italy but Canada will now be upgraded to silver while China get the bronze.
Ujah did not challenge the decision but claimed he had “not knowingly or intentionally doped”. However, Kilty said British Athletics and UK Anti-Doping had “hammered home” their rules, asking athletes not to use uncertified supplements.
“They are the rules you have to follow and I have for the last 21 years. It’s just devastating that other team mates haven’t followed the rules as strictly as the rest of us. And we’ve been burned by that,” Kilty told BBC Radio.
“You are responsible for everything that goes into your body — everything… It doesn’t go through your mind once and it never crossed my mind ever that one of our members failed a test, not in a million years.
“Only CJ knows the truth. Either he took drugs or it was contaminated in his supplements which weren’t tested. Either one is not following the rules.”
Kilty said his disappointment was compounded by the fact he cannot send his son to school with an Olympic medal.
“The happiness for me was to win an Olympic medal and give it to my son for him to take it into school and say ‘my dad won an Olympic medal’,” Kilty said.
“I never got to do that. The motivation is for the next two and a half years to make sure that job gets done properly next time.”
(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Toby Davis)
