Adam Gemili

The 29-year-old sprinter has shed 10kgs after moving to Italy following controversy and poor performances in 2022.

Gemili lost his lottery funding in December 2021 after staying with ex-coach Rana Reider, who was the subject of an investigation by the US Center for Safe Sport following multiple complaints of sexual misconduct, allegations which he denied.

Reider was given one-year probation earlier this year after he “acknowledged a consensual romantic relationship with an adult athlete, which presented a power imbalance”, according to his lawyer.

Gemili remained in America with Reider until after last year’s World Championships – where he failed to reach the 200m semi-final and only ran the heats as Great Britain won bronze in the 4x100m relay.

At the time Gemili hit out at bad press surrounding Reider for his performance – before apologising and taking the blame.

He also failed to make the 200m final at the Commonwealth Games during a year which left him rock bottom.

“I was alone in Florida, I was eating, I wasn’t doing anything and I found escape in food,” he told the PA news agency, ahead of the start of the World Championships in Budapest on Saturday. “It was the worst year of my life.

“I was severely depressed and food was a big escape. It’s been about getting happy again, getting mentally in a better place and becoming professional again. I started the year at 87 kilos, I’m now 77.

“I’m not like the other sprinters. I look at food and I put on weight. I’m not massively ripped, I don’t have a huge six pack. I’ve never needed that to run fast but I don’t need to be carrying an extra 10 kilos.

“I wasn’t professional last year and it’s made a massive difference. Being happy changes everything, your hormones, you start sleeping better.

“If you don’t sleep well you wake up in the middle of the night, you’re hungry, you go and eat and it’s just a bad cycle.

“It happens to a lot of people and a lot of athletes, especially when they’re not successful and then they find escape through food. I didn’t have people around me to say ‘stop that’.

“It was the worst time of my life and you don’t realise the negative effects it can have mentally.

“I was waking up to negative news, three missed calls from my mum and friends are texting saying ‘have you seen this article that’s come out? Your name and your picture is here’.

“Life in Italy is completely different, you’re waking up every day in the sunshine.

“Jeremiah (Azu) and I have two little electric scooters, we ride those to the track every day, it’s five minutes, train, get your treatment, go home and chill. It’s just good vibes.

“I feel incredibly happy. I’m enjoying every day and training whereas, last year, I was probably training once a week and barely getting through that.

“I was in a terrible place and to go from that to where I am now training with the athletes that I’m training with is great.”

Gemili, now on relay funding, is working with coach Marco Airale in Padua, 40 kilometres outside Venice, in a group which includes Darryl Neita, Reece Prescod and Azu.

He labels Italian Airale a “genius” and “super understanding”, having helped him earn his place in Great Britain’s 4x100m relay squad in Hungary.

While there is no individual slot for Gemili, who came an agonising fourth in the 200m at the Rio Olympics and the 2019 World Championships, he knows what he could still achieve.

Yet the 2014 European 200m champion is starting to think about life after the track and is hopeful of joining the World Athletics Athletes’ Commission, which is being voted for during the Championships in Budapest.

“You want to be an individual athlete but my mindset doesn’t change. I’m still locked in,” he says.

“I’ve been in this position before, at London 2017, and we ended up winning relay gold. Nothing changes for me. I’ve done it before and became world champion.

“Where I am in my career, I’m not that 19, 20-year-old anymore. I’m 30 in October and other things start to take priority in your life.

“I’m going for the World Athletes’ Commission, which is something I’ve always been super passionate about.

“I want to start making meaningful changes. I’m there to actually make a difference.

“I was lucky enough to be there at London 2012 and you would have expected our sport to have come on leaps and bounds and it did at the start but then has regressed back. Anyone who says it hasn’t is kidding themselves.

“We need more participation, we need more sponsorship in the sport, we need to attract more fans to our sport and make it accessible for everyone.”

For now Gemili is determined to enjoy Hungary, after admitting in February he nearly quit athletics and returned to football, having been in Chelsea’s academy as a kid.

“If I reflect on the place I was last year, I did want to give up; I basically stopped and I had options,” he said.

“I wasn’t enjoying it. It’s been a lot of hard work from a lot of people, not just myself but friends, family, training partners, coaches and support staff have helped me get my confidence back.

“I’m grateful to see where I’ve come from and if I can do it, anyone can. I was someone who never thought I would ever be in that position.

“Everyone has their own battles and demons they’re fighting and there’s always light at the end of the tunnel. Just being here at this Championships, I couldn’t have imagine that 12 months ago.”

Last month, the IOC executive board approved recommendations in regard to Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter, relating to athlete expression at Tokyo 2020 and beyond.

Although it pledged to "increase opportunities for athletes' expression during the Olympic Games" and celebrate "Peace, Respect, Solidarity, Inclusion and Equality" through collective branding, it was deemed "not appropriate" for competitors to "demonstrate or express their views on the field of play".

As such, any actions such as taking a knee at a podium ceremony will be subject to sanctions, although it is unclear at this stage what the punishments might be.

British sprinter Gemili told The Guardian "all hell would break loose" if athletes were banned for protesting.

If he is able to improve upon his fourth-placed finish in the 200m at Rio 2016, the 27-year-old explained he would not be dissuaded from taking a stand and cited double standards over the celebrations of Black Power protests at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico and the IOC's present position.

"For sure I would be happy to take a knee if I was successful at the Olympics and I had that opportunity," he said.

"I would definitely protest. The fact the IOC is telling athletes 'no, you can't do it' is only going to make people more angry. If the opportunity came, I wouldn't shy away from it.

"This is what I don’t understand: the IOC are so quick to use Tommie Smith, the picture of his fist raised, but they are saying 'actually, no one is allowed to do that'. It doesn't make sense.

"I don't think you can ban an athlete for protesting. And if they do, all hell would break loose and it could go south and sour very quickly. They will be very naive to even try to do that.

"The Olympics is not a place to be political, it's a place for sport and to bring the whole world together, but the whole BLM movement is more than political. It's about being a good human, and equal rights for everyone."

The IOC reported 70 per cent of over 3,500 athlete respondents to their survey were against demonstrations on the "field of play" or at official ceremonies, with that figure dropping fractionally to 67 per cent for podium ceremonies.

Nevertheless, Gemili feels the governing body's methodology was flawed when it came to accurately showing the strength of feeling from athletes of different racial and ethnic backgrounds.

"I think the IOC knew exactly what it was doing," he added.

Praught-Leer, who got 559 votes joins New Zealand’s Valerie Adams (NZL), who garnered 627 votes, Frenchman Renaud Lavillenie (FRA) who polled 604 votes, Spain’s Diego Garcia Carrera, who took in 553 votes, the USA’s Jasmine Todd (USA), who had 546 votes and Great Britain’s Adam Gemili, who got 542 votes on the commission that is tasked with empowering athlete representation in Olympic Movement decision-making processes as well as supporting athlete development in their sporting and non-sporting careers.

Six additional Athletes' Commission members will be appointed by the World Athletics Council over the course of the next month to bring the number back to its intended 18. The Chair and Deputy Chair positions will be voted on by the Athletes’ Commission once the membership is finalised.

All athletes accredited for the World Athletics Championships Budapest 23 had the right to vote in this year’s elections.

To be eligible for election, athletes needed to have competed in at least one of the past two editions of the World Athletics Championships, or in the most recent Olympic Games, or be a competitor at this year’s World Athletics Championships.

This year’s elections introduced a new method of voting. For the first time, voting was done electronically, on portable voting devices, rather than via paper ballots. This transition to electronic voting is in line with World Athletics’ commitment to sustainability, and was introduced to enable a more efficient polling and counting process.

Since 2019, the Chairperson and one other member of the Athletes’ Commission – one woman and one man – have been full voting members of the World Athletics Council.