Jeremiah Azu Is Dreaming Of Olympic Gold . . . Plus Commonwealth Games Glory For Wales

Jeremiah Azu. Pic. Alamy

He's the fastest man in the UK, Europe, and the world when it comes to indoor 60m sprinting, but Jeremiah Azu is still determined to win for Wales at the Commonwealth Games, as Owen Morgan reports.

Welsh Athletics has launched its new weekly podcast with a starter’s pistol bang – thanks to an in-depth chat with World Indoor 60m champion Jeremiah Azu.

The Beyond the Track podcast promises to provide unique insights from athletes and sports professionals in Wales and beyond.

The first episode certainly delivers as Wales’ fastest man opens up on a variety of different subjects, including:

•   the unique strength he feels when competing for Wales
•   the trust he has in coach Helen James
•   his ambition to win Olympic gold at the LA Olympics
•   taking his first steps to becoming an athletics coach in Brecon
•   not being the fastest kid in his primary school
•   the Mario Kart king in the Welsh Commonwealth Games holding camp
•   how family life, cooking and DIY help him manage the demands of elite sport

Azu enjoyed a 100 per cent winning record during this year’s indoor season. A remarkable purple patch of form between January 18 and March 21 brought him the Welsh, British, European and World 60m titles.

All this while also becoming a dad for the first time and setting up a new home back in his home city of Cardiff after two years of living and training in Italy.

But in the podcast, Wales’ fastest ever man over 100m reveals he is only just getting started as far as his athletics ambitions are concerned and lifts the lid on a number of aspects of his life on the track and beyond.

Despite the prospect of a place at the World Athletics Championships at the end of this summer, one of the subjects which lights up Azu’s eyes during the chat with hosts James Thie and Jenny Nesbitt is next year’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

The man who won a 4x100m bronze medal at the Paris Olympics for Great Britain last summer, speaks of the powerful emotions he feels when running for Wales.

“It’s so unique,” he says. “I kind of look forward to it even more because it’s not as often (as representing GB).

“You feel a different strength when you put that Welsh vest on. You truly feel like the Welsh people are with you.

“There’s definitely an element of that when you wear the British kit, but because I’m the only Welsh sprinter in the GB set up, I feel it’s just a unique feeling to be away from that and have the Welsh vest on.

“Especially because we’re the dragons as well, there is so much power in that!”

Azu is excited by the prospect of competing in front of a British crowd in Glasgow next summer, just as he did in Birmingham in 2022, where he finished fifth individually.

There is also the tantalising possibility of running alongside his brother Alex Azu if Wales gain a 4x100m relay spot.

“Hopefully we can get a relay team qualified, that would be really sick. I could run with my brother, that would be amazing,” said Azu.

Now based back in Wales after his time under coach Mario Airale in Italy, Azu trains in a group including his brother under the watchful eye of Helen James, who first encouraged him to take athletics seriously.

Azu speaks fondly and in depth of the coach-athlete relationship he shares with James, especially since he’s re-joined her group in Cardiff.

“One of the things I remember when I left Helen, we had a conversation – and it’s never easy when you leave a coach – but she had so much respect for me in that conversation,” Azu tells the podcast.

“And she made it so clear that if I ever needed to come back, the door was always open. I think that meant a lot to me because you hear about other stories of people leaving coaches and it’s like they can’t even be in the same room, you know?

“Every time I saw her when I was away she showed me nothing but love. There’s just that massive trust. It’s allowed me to believe she knows what’s best for me.”

And the 24-year-old reveals how he recently started his own coaching journey at an assistant level one course in a sports hall on a wet weekend in Brecon.

Asked whether those on the course were star struck by a world champion “putting out cones” alongside them, Azu says: “Some of them were, some of them knew who I was. When I came back from lunch, then all of them knew! I tried to go in low key and try to get away with not being noticed.”

However, he certainly isn’t ready to hang up his spikes just yet. There is the not insignificant matter of the Los Angeles Olympics on the horizon.

Asked what his ultimate athletics goal is, Azu says: "Olympic gold . . . I would be so content with that."

“Looking towards LA, I’ll be a decent age I think, this next four years, I’m going to get a real solid foundation and I’ll be ready to go for it there. I’m excited for it, especially as it’s going to be in America and they like to do things big!”

Azu also outlines his plans for competing in the Eugene and London Diamond League meetings this summer before setting his sights on the UK Championships in Birmingham, which also double up as the trials for the World Athletics Championships in China this September.

Podcast hosts Thie and Nesbitt are ideally equipped to tease out titbits of information from Azu and future athletics guests lined up for the podcast.

Thie is a former Wales and Great Britain middle distance international who competed at the World Indoor Championships and the Commonwealth Games. The senior lecturer at Cardiff Met University is also a highly successful coach and respected athletics commentator.

Meanwhile, current athlete Nesbitt has also competed at the Commonwealth Games as well as the World Cross Country. Championships and the World University Games and has contested a number of elite 10ks across Europe already this year.

To hear much more about what makes Azu tick on and off the track and lots more about what’s going on in Welsh athletics, you can watch the Beyond the Track Podcast on the Welsh Athletics You Tube Channel.