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Eugene Amo-Dadzie (left) competed against Olympic 100m champion Lamont Marcell Jacobs of Italy (right) at the European Indoor Championships in March, but did not qualify for the final
It was first thing on Sunday morning that Eugene Amo-Dadzie – the self-styled world’s fastest accountant – heard the knock on his front door.
Bleary-eyed having only returned from his life-changing trip to Austria late the night before, he excitedly jumped out of bed and hurried to welcome his early visitors.
“As soon as I saw their credentials I was buzzing,” says Amo-Dadzie, of the UK Anti-Doping (Ukad) officers standing on his doorstep asking him to proe a urine sample. “It’s validation of your achievement.”
At 30, Amo-Dadzie is the oldest new kid on the block British sprinting has ever seen.
Despite only taking up athletics when he was 26, his astonishing 9.93-second performance in Graz, Austria, last week means he is now the quickest 100m runner in Europe this year by some margin. The time also places him fourth on the British all-time list.
Not bad for a full-time accountant with no sponsors or funding. “If you know anyone at Nike, Adidas, New Balance, Puma, Asics or anywhere else then send them my way,” he jokes.
Amo-Dadzie’s 9.93 seconds:
Joint-fourth fastest British male of all timeFastest European time of the season so farJoint-13th fastest man in the world this yearReece Prescod is the only other Briton under 10 seconds this year
Amo-Dadzie’s athletics story is one of two distinct beginnings, the second – and most significant – of which came in summer 2018 when he and his lifelong friend stumbled across a local track meeting after playing football in east London.
Watching the 100m, his friend turned to Amo-Dadzie and bluntly said: “You could put a pair of spikes on and beat these guys. Why haven’t you tried this properly before?”
Amo-Dadzie had no real answer. He had always been quick, competing for his secondary school – which he left with a personal best of 11.3 seconds – despite never training or joining a local club.
His plans to join the athletics team while studying at the University of Nottingham disintegrated amid the distractions of student life. “Let’s just say track and field quickly fell down my list of priorities,” he says, with a laugh.
While his friends would gently tease him for wasting his express speed on opposition defenders in amateur football, he was content to follow athletics from afar while telling himself he could have made it if only he had committed. On that afternoon in east London, he belatedly decided to give it a shot.
Within a year of his first training session at Woodford Green Athletics Club, he reached the British Championships semi-finals, racing against Olympians Adam Gemili and Harry Aikines-Aryeetey.
That debut season brought a personal best of 10.55, which he then lowered to 10.20 in 2021 and 10.05 the following year.
A first British vest arrived this March at the European Indoor Championships, where he reached the 60m semi-finals, but few outside his immediate circle had any inkling of what was to come in Graz last Friday evening, where he blitzed the field in almost entirely windless conditions.
“I got a really good reaction, a really good start and then it was like ‘Do not let your foot off the gas’,” he says. “I got into my upright running and I literally felt like I was flying.
“I leaned towards the line, looked over, saw the time began with a nine and went crazy. I just went mad. God willing, I will run that many more times, but you only get the first one once. It was one of the best days of my life.”
In a sport where supporters are used to being burned by things that seem too good to be true, some have cast shade on a relative unknown 30-year-old suddenly running such a fast time.
But Amo-Dadzie says criticism does not faze him, welcoming the chance to be added to the rigorous whereabouts anti-doping system reserved for the highest rank of elite athlete.
“There are always people who are sceptical of great things that people achieve,” he says. “If you know my story and have been following me then it makes sense.
“I’m a big, big supporter of clean athletics. Ukad are more than welcome to break my door down. My wife will tell you how excited I was when they banged on the door the first time.
“It’s validation of all the hard work. They are not going to test someone who is running 10.8. If I want to be a professional athlete, this is what comes with that.”
The switch to turning professional is surely inevitable, although this week he is back fitting training sessions around work as a senior management accountant for a property company.
He is on track for an indiual spot on the British team for August’s World Championships, where he also hopes to make the 4x100m squad for the first time.
One question remains – something more people are asking him with every giant leap he makes. Does he wonder what he might have achieved if he had taken athletics seriously 15 years or more ago?
“No. Easy answer,” he says. “If I was 18, showed a bit of potential and got a deal, I feel like I might not have realised that potential.
“I feel like I came into the sport at the right time. The head that I had on my shoulders at that time has allowed me to navigate this thing in a sensible way.
“I very much enjoy that I have a different story. I still refer to myself as an accountant that happens to operate in the world of track and field.”
Surely, no longer. He is now a sprinter who happens to be an accountant.
TimeAthleteDatePlace9.87Linford Christie15 August 1993Stuttgart (Germany)9.91James Dasaolu13 July 2013Birmingham (England)9.91Zharnel Hughes9 June 2018Kingston (Jamaica)9.93Reece Prescod31 May 2022Ostrava (Czech Republic)9.93Eugene Amo-Dadzie16 June 2023Graz (Austria)9.96CJ Ujah8 June 2014Hengelo (Netherlands)9.96Joel Fearon30 July 2016Bedford (England)9.97Dwain Chambers22 August 1999Seville (Spain)9.97Adam Gemili7 June 2015Birmingham (England)9.98Jason Gardener2 July 1999Lausanne (Switzerland)9.99Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake 13 May 2017Columbia (United States)
Stats from World Athletics website
