IOC officially upgrades Canada’s 4x100m relay team to silver

After nine months of review and analysis of British sprinter CJ Ujah’s positive anti-doping test by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the bronze medals of the Canadian quartet of Aaron Brown, Andre De Grasse, Brendon Rodney and Jerome Blake have officially been upgraded to silver in the men’s 4x100m relay; the International Olympic Committee (IOC) rubber-stamped the upgrade during Thursday’s meeting of the executive board.

Following today's meeting of the IOC Committee Executive board, events in biathlon and athletics from the Olympic Games Sochi 2014 and Tokyo 2020 respectively will see medals, diplomas and medallist pins reallocated. ?

More details here ?https://t.co/HWKe68Oc9J pic.twitter.com/p6dg4Np7fW

— IOC MEDIA (@iocmedia) May 19, 2022

The team finished third at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Their time of 37.70 seconds was 0.20 slower than the gold medallists from Italy, who beat Great Britain by a photo finish one-hundredth of a second. But six days after the final was run on Aug. 6, 2021, the Athletics Integrity Unit announced a provisional suspension for British sprinter Chijindu “CJ” Ujah, whose post-race test revealed two banned substances–ostarine and S-23, which can be used to increase energy and enhance muscle growth. After analysis of the B-sample confirmed the result of the A-sample, the case was passed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in September.

In February, the CAS issued its decision that an anti-doping violation had occurred. Ujah’s results from the 100m and the 4x100m relay were disqualified, which also led to the disqualification of the entire British relay squad, who were stripped of their second-place finish.

Brown said in a video on his Youtube channel that he and his teammates were content with the bronze medal, because they had earned it and they had moved on. “To retroactively get upgraded to a silver medal on our day off kinda feels weird,” Brown says. “We didn’t go out there and run any faster, we didn’t do anything different on the track. It’s literally because of a disqualification, so that feels a little strange.”

The Canadian men’s 4x100m team will be in action this Saturday, May 21, at the Birmingham Diamond League in the U.K., where they will face three of the four men from the disqualified GB relay team, without Ujah. Birmingham Diamond League can be streamed online at CBC Sports on Saturday morning, starting at 9 a.m. E.T.