The former sprinter talks about his return from the green after the fall that almost cost him his life, his struggles to try to reach the highest level again and why he has found peace after a quiet retirement from athletics.
“So what are the goals?” the doctor asks, as an alarmingly emaciated James Ellington sits in a wheelchair pushed by his then-coach, Linford Christie.
“Back to normal next year,” Ellington responds instantly. Without emotions, without missing a beat. “What do you mean, back to normal?” the confused consultant responds.
“Full training. Compete,” Ellington says, prompting an endless pause as the audacity of his statement hangs in the air.
Finally, so quietly that he has to repeat himself to be heard, Christie breaks the silence to gently offer a more realistic ambition for Ellington’s future: “Just being able to walk without support.”
The clip is at the top of Ellington’s list. instagram page for almost seven years, offering a permanent reminder of the athlete who never knew when he was defeated, even when his career took a step back and his life had been in danger so recently. A man of incomparable dedication, who would not bow to convention or accept the limitations of others. A man who refused to give up. Until one day he did.
The last time I sat down for a proper interview with Ellington was when I visited his home in west London in the spring of 2021. Four years had passed since the day everything changed, when the motorcycle he was riding with fellow British sprinter Nigel Levine at a training camp in Tenerife collided with an oncoming car.
Ellington’s injuries were so severe (a compound fracture of the right leg, a broken left ankle, a fractured eye socket, a displaced and fractured pelvis, the loss of six liters of blood) that he was lucky to be alive.
But when medical professionals told him he would never run again without a limp, Ellington ignored them and demonstrated his determination by routinely falling out of the wheelchair to which he was confined for six weeks and crawling to do push-ups on the floor.
“The worst thing you can do is doubt me,” he told me, days before the return 100m race in which he would clock a wind-assisted 10.40 alongside amateur runners at Dagenham’s Jim Peters Stadium.
His mission at the time, one that had fueled every painful step of his recovery, was to become a triple Olympian in Tokyo that summer. When I asked him if he could ever be content without achieving such an unfathomably lofty ambition, he thought about it silently for 12 seconds before finally giving his one-word answer: “No.”
Ellington’s quiet retirement from athletics two years later generated no headlines. Even British Athletics made no mention on its social media pages in tribute to a sprint mainstay of countless international teams; that silence still occupies a place today. But, by that time, his duty had been largely forgotten. Ellington and the sport belatedly went their separate ways.
So, with great intrigue I organize another interview to discover two main things: What happened in those years since we last spoke? And, having not come close to adding to his multiple international vests after the accident, has he been able to find any satisfaction?
The truth, and he admits that it took him another two years to accept it, is that he knew his cause was hopeless the moment he crossed the finish line of his heat at the 2021 Olympic trials. He had placed fourth, clocking 11:00 in truly horrendous conditions and with a headwind of -3.4 m/s, immediately abandoning the competition. The only goal that had motivated him for years was gone.
“It wasn’t even like I was upset,” Ellington, 40, says. “It was a strange feeling. You know when boxers say they know when it’s time to stop? Well, it just disappeared.
“Physically I was fine, but damn, when I crossed that line in whatever time I ran and was there, I was like, ‘This is a joke.’ And then I immediately tried to convince myself that I was going to try again the next year. But mentally, I just wasn’t there.”
Surely not. Is the same man who forced himself to train when his body was completely destroyed suggesting that he did not return to the international ranks because he lacked the mental desire?
“Yes, exactly,” he continues. “Physically, I saw a lot of what I needed in training. I was training against people who were currently competing and doing what I needed to do. But as soon as I got to the starting line, in my heart and in my head, I didn’t feel it. I was doing it in training, but as soon as it was time to compete it was no longer there. The energy it took me to get to where I got was so much that the motivation disappeared.
“Everyone on the line wanted to cut my head off because my name is my name. But I wasn’t the same James anymore because of the accident. The guys are excited to face me and I didn’t have the strength to run.
“Coming back from a high level to a not-so-high level, you can’t force that motivation. That was a big obstacle. At that point I was exhausted. Psychologically and spiritually, I was exhausted.”
It’s a fascinating admission, but it took him years to accept it. He returned to the British Championships the following summer, again emerging in the 100m heats, and intended to attempt a third time in 2023, only to eventually drop out after a National Athletics League competition a few weeks earlier. His best time in the 100 meters after the accident was 10.39.
“I was going through the motions during training, but when the competition came around, I couldn’t wait to get home,” he says. “It was strange. It was like I was being pushed back and forth inside myself, trying to stick to the narrative of coming back, but the passion was gone.
“But I couldn’t get off the train because I had said I would go back to where I thought I could. I was really fighting against myself.”
Now, much later than doctors predicted nearly a decade ago, he is officially a former athlete. After taking a year off to adjust to life without the relentless grind of athletics, he now works as a public speaker and sprint coach for people competing in other sports. This summer also saw the birth of his son, 14 years after becoming a father to his daughter from a previous relationship.
An out-of-court financial settlement over the accident was finally reached last year, with the Spanish insurers of Levine’s rented bike admitting liability for Ellington’s damages. He suggests the sum “definitely helped”, but restrictive Spanish laws meant it was one of the lowest payments in the world. The claim was not against Levine, whose athletic career ended when he was suspended for four years in 2018 after testing positive for clenbuterol.
“After the accident I felt good about him,” says Ellington or Levine. “I didn’t have any hard feelings towards him. Shitty things happen. But then he did some dumb shit after the accident and it bothered me because my name was being dragged into it since I was in the accident with him. I lost contact with him, but I never had any hard feelings to begin with.”
In fact, there are few athletes Ellington still talks to. He names double European 200m medalist Danny Talbot and says he remains friends with most of Britain’s female sprinters of his era. But athletics and those who practice it are largely a memory of the past.
“Sometimes when you quit a sport or something bad happens, you realize who your friends are,” Ellington says. “I was disappointed because I thought some people in athletics were my real friends outside, but I was wrong. “When that accident happened, some people stepped up and a lot of people you expected to be there just disappeared into thin air.
“I watched a little bit of the World Championships this summer, but I’m not really into it. Someone will ask me if I watched athletics and I won’t even know what they were broadcasting. I’m just not really interested. Being out of that environment is nice.”
Leaving athletics has not dimmed his training obsession which sees him train five days a week and train regularly in the Brazilian martial art of jiu-jitsu. Taking his perfectly sculpted body to ever greater heights, the workout remains an addiction he intends to hold on to forever.
“Training is my vice,” he says. “I like the results of feeling strong and fit. I think, mentally, if I didn’t train I would go crazy. It keeps me regulated, keeps my brain engaged and keeps me healthy.
“I need to lead by example. There are many people who do not practice what they preach. It is very important, in the [coaching] “In the industry I’m in, I tell people how to do things and I need to be the part I talk about.”
Every once in a while, an ache or pain will serve as a reminder of the trauma his body went through, but he says he’s “lucky not to feel any residual issues” from the accident.
So now that we both know the outcome, I ask him the same question that made him pause for so long during our last interview. Having stubbornly defied medical expectations not only to run again but also to run fast enough to compete with some of Britain’s best, is he happy with everything he achieved after the accident despite not realizing the Olympic dream he had clung to?
“It’s a difficult question to answer,” he responds. “Because I’m not on that journey now, I can come out of it and see that I did well. In that sense, I did well. But, at the same time, because I like to push myself and achieve the things I set out to do, I’m not happy.
“When it ended, I can’t say I was very sad or disappointed. It was just the end of the road. I just accepted it. But I definitely look back with pride.
“I have good people around me, I’m happy, my body is working and I’m in good shape, better than some athletes who still compete. I’m definitely having success.”
