'You don't have to like the people you work with:' Darren Campbell is relishing restoring harmony within GB relay team after CJ Ujah doping ordeal

Darren Campbell was once on the coaching staff at Cardiff City. It was, it turns out, perfect preparation for his current role back in the sport where he made his name.

‘Working in football gave me an understanding of dealing with many different characters who don’t necessarily like each other but have to go out on the field as an 11 and work,’ says Campbell, who was the Bluebirds’ sprint coach when they won Premier League promotion in 2013. ‘I learnt a lot. It is about getting everybody to buy into the same dream – and man-management.’

As the head of sprints and relays at UK Athletics, Campbell’s man-management skills have been tested more than ever in recent weeks. That is largely because of his decision to select CJ Ujah in the men’s 4x100m squad for last weekend’s World Relays, the athlete whose failed drugs test saw the British team stripped of the silver medal they won at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

Also in the eight-man party in the Bahamas were the three sprinters who lost their gongs because of Ujah’s actions – Zharnel Hughes, Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake and Richard Kilty. The latter went on the record two years ago to say that he would never forgive the ‘sloppy and reckless’ Ujah.

Campbell, then, has had his work cut out trying to create harmony on Paradise Island, where the British team have been staying. But, as the 50-year-old is keen to point out, he has first-hand experience of such situations. ‘I went through it myself with Dwain Chambers,’ he reminds Mail Sport.

It was 20 years ago that Chambers tested positive for banned steroid THG, causing Campbell to be stripped of his European and world sprint relay medals. When Chambers returned from his two-year ban, Campbell reluctantly raced with him again, winning European gold together in 2006.

‘In any walk of life, you don’t have to like the people that you work with, but you have to do the job that you are here to do – and every single athlete that has come out here has been absolutely professional,’ says Campbell.

‘We have all had conversations to make sure everyone is comfortable. All we can do is speak to each athlete, listen to their feelings on it and try and find a happy medium where people can get on with the job in hand.

‘We are not asking everybody to be the best of friends, but what we are asking is that they respect each other because everybody has the right to represent Great Britain. There are no rules that say I can’t pick CJ.’

As it transpired, Ujah did not run in the Bahamas. Kilty, Hughes, Mitchell-Blake and Eugene Amo-Dadzie qualified the team’s place in Paris by finishing second in their heat on the opening night. Jona Efoloko then replaced Amo-Dadzie in the following day’s final, when they finished fifth in a race won by Noah Lyles’ USA.

Reece Prescod, Britain’s second fastest sprinter, was also an unused squad member at the World Relays. At last year’s World Championships, he was accused of walking out on the team after missing practice sessions, but later claimed he was nursing an injury.

‘My stance with regards to Reece has never changed - I just want him to practise,’ says Campbell. ‘But he has been unbelievable on this camp. I wouldn’t hesitate to select Reece for any relay.’

Campbell was not actually in Budapest for the Prescod affair last summer. Officially he was on sick leave, but he had also had a disagreement with Stephen Maguire, UKA’s then technical director. When Maguire surprisingly left the organisation last October, Campbell returned to work.

‘I just think it was maybe a personality clash,’ says Campbell, speaking about their fall-out for the first time. ‘I felt targeted in a few different ways. The organisation was very supportive to my feelings and I felt appreciated. I have come back to finish off what I started.

‘The sport breathes life into me. I can never be grateful enough to the sport that I am here and happy, especially with what happened in 2018.’

That was the year Campbell nearly died after suffering a bleed on the brain. Just three years later, though, he was appointed into his current role.

‘When the opportunity arose to go for this job, I wasn’t going to go for it but it was my wife and oldest son that said, “We think you will be good at it and it’ll help you with your recovery”. And it definitely has helped.’

Not only is Campbell a hugely popular personality, he is also able to pass on his wisdom of winning an Olympic relay gold medal. Last week, he got Mark Lewis-Francis – who ran the anchor leg 20 years ago in Athens – to deliver a video message to the class of 2024.

‘It’s easy for me to talk about it but it would get boring, so it was better I brought somebody else in who was a part of it,’ he says. ‘Mark was 21 at the time and some of these guys are young athletes. It could be their time. If you don’t dream that you could become Olympic champion, you won’t do it.’

Despite the media attention being on the men’s 4x100m, Campbell also oversees Britain’s other four relay teams – the women’s 4x100m and the men’s, women’s and mixed 4x400m. In the Bahamas, they all booked their places in Paris, where GB will be looking to match or better the four relay medals they won in Budapest last summer.

‘Last year showed what is possible,’ adds Campbell. ‘We are Great Britain and we want to show we are back to being great.’

Price of Paradise

More than 800 athletes from 52 nations descended on the Bahamas and all were accommodated in the sprawling 400-acre Atlantis on Paradise Island.

The luxury resort has its own water park, aquarium, cinema and 18-hole golf course. But it also boasts 19 bars, a nightclub and the Caribbean’s largest casino.

Spare a thought for the poor team coaches tasked with ensuring athletes stayed in their rooms after hours.

Legend Lewis on board

IT was interesting to see Carl Lewis working here as an ambassador for World Athletics given his recent criticism of the organisation’s proposal to revamp the long jump.

Lewis, a four-time Olympic long jump champion, labelled the idea of testing using a take-off zone instead of a take-off board as an ‘April Fools’ joke’ on X earlier this year.

The US legend have held talks with World Athletics president Lord Coe and chief executive Jon Ridgeon about the controversial concept over the weekend.

Meanwhile, World Athletics have announced the latest innovation they are to trial - a new 4x100m relay event, following the success of the mixed 4x400m.

Sprint series boost

Bosses at World Athletics are privately thrilled with how their next Netflix series, Sprint, has turned out having now viewed the finished six episodes.

Lyles and his fellow American Sha’Carri Richardson are understood to be the stars of the show, which is due to air ahead of the Olympics in July. 

Filming for a second series is already underway.

World Athletics are close to announcing the first host city of their new ‘best of the best’ global championships which will launch in 2026.

It will be held over three nights, which each session lasting three hours, and only the top 16 athletes in each track event will be invited, along with just the best eight in each field discipline.

The world and Olympic 100m champions went head-to-head in Nassau and there was a resounding winner, on and off the track.

Moody Marcell snubs requests

At Friday’s opening press conference, Marcell Jacobs, who shocked the world when he triumphed at Tokyo 2020, looked like he would rather have been anywhere else, sitting moodily behind sunglasses and a baseball cap, then refusing to fulfil any additional media requests. 

It was if he had something to hide.

In contrast, Noah Lyles, who completed the sprint treble in Budapest, was all smiles on stage and then stayed behind in the searing heat for extra interviews.

It was therefore pleasing to see Lyles’ USA team destroy Jacobs’ Italians to win the men’s 4x100m relay. Athletics is lucky to have Lyles.