Richard Kilty: Britain’s former world indoor 60m champion retires

Britain’s former world champion sprinter Richard Kilty has announced his retirement from athletics.

Kilty, 35, won 60m gold at the World Indoor Championships in Sopot, Poland in 2014 before claiming back-to-back European indoor 60m titles in 2015 and 2017.

He was part of Team GB’s bronze medal-winning men’s 4x100m relay squad at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, competing in the heats before Jeremiah Azu, Louie Hinchliffe, Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake and Zharnel Hughes ran in the final.

That Olympic medal ensured he would end his career having made every major international podium available to him – both indoors and outdoors.

In total Kilty, known as the Teesside Tornado, won eight major international medals during his career, including five in relay events.

As part of Britain’s men’s 4x100m team he also won European Championship gold in 2014, the Commonwealth Games title in 2018, and World Championship silver in 2019.

However, the British team featuring Kilty, Hughes and Mitchell-Blake was stripped of their Olympic silver medals achieved in Tokyo two years later, after team member CJ Ujah was found to have committed a doping violation.

Kilty said that winning a bronze medal at Paris 2024 had completed his Olympic “recovery mission” as he ensured he completed the set of major championship medals across his career.

He did not compete in the Olympic final after tearing his Achilles tendon in ensuring Team GB earned automatic qualification for the medal race.

Since the Paris Games, Kilty has begun coaching Britain’s exciting young sprinting talent Louie Hinchliffe, following his stunning breakthrough season which led to the 22-year-old joining Kilty on the Olympic podium.