Inside the 10 Seconds: Ojie Edoburun on Mindset, the Call Room and Life Beyond the Track

Ojie Edoburun is one of the most decorated sprinters Britain has produced through the youth ranks. A European U20 and U23 champion, the 2019 British 100m champion, a Commonwealth gold medallist and a sprinter with a 10.04 personal best, his career has spanned more than a decade at the sharp end of the sport.

But this conversation wasn't just about speed. Ojie sat down to talk through the part of sprinting nobody sees on TV - the call room, the mind games, the identity crisis that comes with elite sport, and his recent move into a full-time career at Puresport while still chasing sub-10.

Here's a breakdown of the key lessons, moments and mindset shifts from the conversation.

Ojie didn't grow up dreaming of the 100m. Like most kids, football came first - he had the acceleration but, by his own admission, not the stamina (or the feet).

The spark came in the summer of 2009, flicking through TV channels and landing on Usain Bolt at the World Championships.

"I remember seeing that race and thinking, I think I could do that."

It stayed a thought for a couple of years. The turning point was a local sports day in 2011, where a staff member named Peter Scott pulled him aside after he ran the anchor leg of a relay and told him to come down to a club. That club was Enfield and Haringey, ten minutes from his home in Edmonton, North London.

He turned up to his first session in a pair of Nike Air Forces - not exactly carbon-plated spikes - but what hooked him was something deeper than the kit.

"The autonomy that an individual sport gave me. I was responsible for my results. The work I put in was what I was going to get out."

Ojie won everything as a junior - medals at U17, U18, U20 and U23 level. He was tipped for major senior success. But the transition was brutal.

Suddenly he was lining up against Justin Gatlin, Kim Collins and Usain Bolt - athletes he'd watched on TV, some nearly double his age.

"I still felt like I was watching them on TV. I didn't actually fathom that I was in this moment with them as well."

The early races were rough, and he started building a reputation for choking under pressure at the British Championships. But he's a firm believer in throwing yourself in at the deep end.

Over a few years, he built the self-belief to flip the dynamic entirely:

"In this moment, you may beat me, but you're going to have to run the best race of your life to beat me."

The 2019 British title is one of Ojie's proudest moments. After years of arriving with good form and letting the nerves take over, he and his coach went in with an intentional plan to get over the line - knowing that without the win, there'd be no World Championships.

His mantra on the line was deliberately simple: get from A to B as quick as you can.

"I had to simplify it to just think about doing that sports day, just being a kid and racing for bragging rights."

It paid off in one of the closest national finals ever run - the top three all around the same time, with Ojie winning by around two-thousandths of a second.

"It was confirmation that I belonged on that stage."

Ojie's Commonwealth gold at Birmingham 2022 came after one of the hardest stretches of his career. COVID had killed the momentum he'd built in 2019-2020. He missed the Tokyo Olympic team through injury. Then, for a home Games, he wasn't even initially selected.

The call came two or three days before competition started - he'd be a late replacement.

"That's the national call. You've got to go."

His individual 100m didn't go to plan, but the home crowd left a mark he's never forgotten - roaring for every athlete regardless of where they finished. Handed the anchor leg of the relay despite barely practising with the team, he brought the baton home in first.

"From crossing the line until the next morning, I don't really remember what happened. There was so much noise, so many England flags. We were rock stars that day."

The medal now lives somewhere in his apartment - and after bringing it out at a recent event, he's reminded himself to look at it a bit more often.

For ten years - from 18 to 28 - Ojie was a full-time professional athlete, sponsored by adidas. After narrowly missing the Paris 2024 team, his contract wasn't renewed, and no new sponsor came forward.

For most athletes, the idea of getting a job feels like surrender.

"It almost feels like you're giving up on your dream by deciding to get a job. I never envisioned a world where I could do both."

Encouraged by a friend, he went on LinkedIn and applied for everything he could - "easy apply, 100 times a day" - for two to three weeks. One of those applications was for an ambassador manager role. Funnily enough, he'd already been a Puresport ambassador back in 2023.

His CV was thin on traditional experience, but it carried something else: ten-plus years as an elite athlete, a strong network and a genuinely creative streak.

He's now navigating a brand-new challenge - balancing a full-time role with the pursuit of sub-10.

"There is a world where you can find a job that reflects the lifestyle you want to live and still train. It's not easy - but it's worth having."

Perhaps the most powerful thread of the whole conversation was identity. For most of his career, Ojie only saw himself as an athlete - which made failure feel like a verdict on him as a person.

"When I failed, it always felt like a reflection of me as a human being."

The shift into life beyond the track has let him look back with pride, and give himself a bit more grace.

"Being an athlete is just one strand of you. There are so many things you bring to the table as an individual."

If he could talk to a younger version of himself, the advice would be to explore other interests sooner - to figure out who you are outside the sport. And he's noticed something funny since stepping into the "real world": people are genuinely amazed when he mentions the Olympics or running under 10 seconds, while he stays casual about it, because inside the bubble he was always comparing himself to those ahead of him.

"Being on the other side of the fence now, I'm like - actually, you've done well. You need to big yourself up a bit more."

He's framing this as the start of a new chapter, turning 30 and slowly transitioning into what comes next - while still very much a winner he wants to be in marketing, branding and creative, just as he was on the track.