Joe Chadwick has confirmed his retirement at just 24, having accomplished a lot in his short career, not least triple gold at Gibraltar 2019 and later Guernsey’s 60m and 100m records.
His 6.68sec. run to win a British Universities 60m title is considered by Guernsey Athletics development officer Tom Druce as one of the greatest performances from any Sarnian athlete.
‘The physical feat of producing that is something that I don’t think anyone outside of elite sprinting can really comprehend,’ said an athlete who saw his previous mark of 6.88 heavily revised.
‘I never thought I’d see someone from Guernsey running 6.6 for the 60m.
‘We’ve had some great sportspeople over here, but in terms of the raw physical output of that six seconds, there can’t be many greater single performances.’
The trusted World Athletics scoring tables equate that blazing run to 10.29 for 100m – well beyond the 10.60 he ultimately achieved.
On social media, Guernsey Athletics praised Chadwick as a ‘role model’ and for ‘bringing speed, pride, and inspiration, every time he stepped out onto the track’.
Druce also called him a ‘really loyal and respectful young man who I loved coaching when he was coming through’.
Remarkably, he was only 17 when he struck Island Games 100m gold in Gibraltar, posting 10.82 to become Guernsey’s first champion of the blue-riband sprint since 2005.
He also contributed massively to Guernsey’s 4x100m and 4x400m relay golds and fought a huge headwind for 200m silver.
‘He had an amazing week at the Gibraltar Island Games – he really did love representing Guernsey and I hope he’ll hold onto that week as one of his best memories from the sport,’ Druce said.
‘He basically won us both the relays on the final day and roared to the 100m title in great style too.’
Despite injury troubles, Chadwick claimed the Guernsey 60m record in January 2022, before a month later producing that jaw-dropping time to win the BUCS Championships in Sheffield.
That summer he lined up at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, where he ran his 10.60 to claim the Guernsey 100m record.
Two days later he went second on Guernsey’s all-time 200m list with a 21.53.
Chadwick still came out to put on a show for the home crowd at Guernsey 2023, defying another interrupted build-up to secure silver in 10.70.
‘He was fiercely determined and set incredibly high standards for himself,’ Druce added.
‘Sometimes I wished he’d take more pride in what he had already accomplished, but he always wanted more.
‘I think that refusal to accept mediocrity coupled with his physicality showed that he did have what it took to get to a really high level.
‘It is a genuine shame that his body wasn’t able to quite cope with the strength and speed that he could produce.’
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