Asked to name the best moment of his career and Adam Gemili does not pick his European gold medal over 200 metres but his part in a relay triumph at the 2017 World Championships in London. No surprise. Team sport brings the best out in him.”If there is one night that I could live again it would be that one,” he tells Sky Sports. “I am so grateful that I had the chance to be part of that history. I have the videos of it from my parents’ phone. It was incredible. It was the last race. It was Usain Bolt’s last race.”
Gemili explains: “The odds were stacked against us. We weren’t necessarily the four fastest athletes but, together, we were the four fastest athletes in that stadium. There were the Jamaicans. The Americans had won the gold and silver in the 100 metres.
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CJ Ujah, Gemili, Adam Talbot and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake with their gold medals
“Athletics is a very individual sport. But in a relay, that team element, it can really come together. That is what we did. We came together to do something special. We defended our house. That team environment, it is what I am good at, what I have grown up doing.”Before Gemili became one of the country’s best sprinters, his first love was football. He was in Chelsea’s academy from 2001 to 2008 and was still dreaming of a career in the game when he was selected for the 2012 Olympics. He was 18 years old.
“I was always planning to go back to football but when that happened, it was sort like, nope, this is where I am at now.” For all that he achieved in athletics, he still talks about football with that same wistfulness of any academy prospect who did not quite make it.
“I grew up playing football and that was all that I really knew,” he says. “It just never came to fruition. My dream was to play for England or at least to hear that Champions League music. When we were ball boys at Chelsea, it used to give me goosebumps.”
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Gemili believes that the mechanics of sprinting can help footballers improve
He still credits his time at Chelsea with giving him the discipline that he needed. “They taught me how to be professional, how to do the right things, how to handle pressure. I probably would not be where I am today without having grown up at a club like that.”Where he is today is back at Chelsea, a career come full circle. Having…
2026-04-06 12:00:00
