A junior Olympian who worked as a chef in a five-star central London hotel was found dead in his Streatham Vale home in a pool of his own vomit after overdosing on cocaine, an inquest heard today.

Described by family and friends as “the life and soul of the party”, South African Jean Luc Mina was found by flatmates on the bedroom floor of his Kettering Street home on June 11 this year.

The 23-year-old chef, who ran in the 400m in the Junior Olympics in 1994 and 1995, battled with drug addiction from the age of 14, but was drug-free for the 10 months ahead of his death.

Dr William Shanahan, a psychiatrist who had treated Mr Mina in rehab, described how a “serious chemical onslaught” on his developing brain from LSD and amphetamines left him with frequent paranoid and delusional episodes.

Mr Mina slipped out of athletics as his addiction to drugs took hold, the inquest heard, becoming a chef and seeking help in rehab when he was 17.

He travelled the world, living in Hong Kong, Chicago, Toronto and New York before settling in London, where he worked in the kitchens at the exclusive St Martin’s Lane Hotel in Covent Garden.

The court heard how Mr Mina “loved his work. He loved the heat, the noise and the excitement”.

Dr Shanahan said he was concerned Mr Mina had “switched his addiction from substances to work”, Westminster Coroner’s Court heard.

The day following his death alarm bells rang for Mr Mina’s flatmates, when they were contacted by the hotel saying he had not come to work.

Although they said he had not seemed different from normal on the days prior to his death, they broke down his locked door when he did not respond to calls to find him unconscious.

Police and ambulance crews attended the scene but attempts to revive Mr Mina were unsuccessful.

Toxicology reports showed he had 1.44mg of cocaine per litre in his blood, and deputy coroner Dr Shirley Radcliffe ruled his cause of death was a cocaine overdose.