Anyone watching 9.79 on ESPN??

What I found interesting was how difficult it was for each of those implicated in doping to fully admit it, i.e., "Yes I doped, yes I cheated". Ben Johnson was the only one who was comfortable saying those words, and the others said things like "I made a mistake", or "I hooked up with the wrong coach", or "I've done a lot of good since then", etc. etc. Amazing how hard it is to simply say those words, "I'm a doper, I'm a liar, I'm a cheater".

Anyone know whether they found non-metabolized or metabolized Stanozolol (or both) in Johnson's 1988 Seoul sample. Also, how long does it take to metabolize Stanozolol? No doubt he was a doper, but the question of whether he got caught legitimately or from a spiked drink was an interesting angle from the story.

"Lewis gets beat by Johnson running 10.19. That was pathetic, the times they ran off their drug cycles."

No, it's not pathetic. 10.19 is an unbelievably great time clean.

You wouldn't know this because you have been conditioned to seeing doped performances, and have an unnatural "normal" for your reference.

To anybody who knows anything about the 100m, it is laughable to see an entire season of sub-10 performances from a single athlete.

And no, I'm not watching 9.79 on ESPN.

This I know: Johnson was no genius back then. He was young and very impressionable. Unlike some of us, he was unsure of himself and how he fit into things. He was an easy target, like many. Believe me when I tell you that many of these guys aren't too bright. He didn't have the arrogance, the cockiness that other sprinters had, even when he was winning.

Doping happens with lots of people, but Johnson turned into a lab experiment. He took it where nobody in the west had taken it before, and he was used to test the limits. There were plenty of other guys around doping, but only one who ran 9.7 While I saw lots of doped runners doing incredible things, there was only one Johnson.

Lewis? Lewis is among the greatest t&f athletes who has ever lived, tied for the best with huge names like Owens, Blankers-Koen, JJK, and now maybe Eaton. IF he was using stimulants, so what...they have been around as long as humans have walked the earth, and have been used by everybody, including YOU. In my opinion, stimulants can only help make you as good as you can be, not make you any better. Many athletes, well-trained and ready for competition, can and do achieve this state without stimulants.

Although I have absolutely no love for Lewis personally, as a t&f athlete he is right there with the very best, ever.

And Johnson was still the greatest lab experiment ever. That guy went from a skinny, choppy kid to a huge, ripped, absolutely powerful WR-holder who was 25 yrs ahead of his time...he would have gone maybe high 9.6x if he had been allowed to continue. Everybody after him and before Bolt, who went 9.7, has him to thank, and was doped themselves, following his template. For a guy who in my estimation was at best a 10.2 or 10.3 guy naturally, to go 9.7, represents the greatest-ever lab experiment with a male athlete, maybe equal to the East German women.

B0sl wrote:

Watching Lewis compete in those days, when he failed the test for 3 amphetamines, I could only imagine what else he was taking (HGH for sure).

I don't think recombinant HGH became available until the late 1990s or early 2000s. If he was taking something, it would have been bovine growth hormone, extracted from cow pituitaries. That's what was on the market back in the days, and it was only available in very limited quantities.

I just remember how yellow the "whites" of Ben Johnson's eyes were. His liver couldn't handle everything he was being given.

Now you are showing your ignorance. It is only hard on the liver if it was taken orally. I would hope he was injecting stanzonol & dianobol.

I am a physician and watched the 1987 World Championships in Rome. I was about 20 meters from Ben Jonson at one point in time. His sclerae were brightly jaundiced even then, and it was obvious he was doping.

I did not watch the movie, although now I really want to. How is Ben Johnson's health holding up now? The way SprintGeezer describes it, it's almost somewhat sad to hear about someone being a giant human lab experiment.

Sprintgeezer, so you don't see any problems with using stimulants like amphetamines for sport advantage? I'm just curious. Obviously all of us use things like caffeine and other uppers, so I understand your point. It's interesting the lines we draw in the sand about what constitutes a "legal" drug and an illegal one, whether it comes to sport or normal laws.

While the general public has been led to view track and biking as the most drug ridden sports, we hear nothing about the NFL.

Which seems to be filled to the gills with steroid type performance enhancers for weight training, speed and pain-killers for game day performance, and booze and who knows what for post game partying.

I am pretty sure it is the most drug infested of all sports. Yet we hear virtually nothing about it. Too much money I guess

I may be wrong here but here's why I think that isI track and field records are sacred, to an extent I haven't seen in football (the various passing and rushing records seem secondary to just winning games and the super bowl). In track a world record is equal in importance (this is debatable of course but the fact that the debate of which is more important is had so often I think reinforces my point). People don't care if the guy is roided up in football because they don't care so much about the records as the big hits. Baseball is closer to track in this regard and that's why there seems to be more scandal when a player is found to be doping (ie Barry Bonds breaking the home run record).Simply put, the track and field community seems to have a bigger problem with drugs BECAUSE we have bigger problem with drugs--we care about our records and we call out anyone who tries to fool the stop watch.What do Rashid Ramzi and Paul Ryan have in common?

Giles Corey wrote:

While the general public has been led to view track and biking as the most drug ridden sports, we hear nothing about the NFL.

Which seems to be filled to the gills with steroid type performance enhancers for weight training, speed and pain-killers for game day performance, and booze and who knows what for post game partying.

I am pretty sure it is the most drug infested of all sports. Yet we hear virtually nothing about it. Too much money I guess

College football has been dirty for a really long time too. Most of you are too young to remember all the giant acne ridden linemen that Nebraska used to field. They were always competing or winning the national championship in the 80's with these juicers. Now.. not so much.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

Johnson was no genius back then. He was young and very impressionable. Unlike some of us, he was unsure of himself and how he fit into things. He was an easy target, like many. .

Ben was not and is not dumb. You obviously don't know him and are going by snippets of interviews.

He was training 6 hours a day in the mid 80's and was under the impression that 'everybody' was doing drugs.

Charlie could go through a book of Olympians and tell you what each athlete was on and how he knew. Charlie was very, very intelligent by any measure.

My take on Carl is that he cheated with stimulants, but he didn't cheat nearly as bad as Ben Johnson. Some will say cheating is cheating, but I don't see it that way in this instance. I look at what Carl did as not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign, whereas Johnson was driving 125 in a 15 mph speed zone.

"I watched too," I SAW how yellow they were. And based on at least one subsequent comment, I'm not the only one.

"anyone know if its online anywhere or if there will be a replay???"

ESPN or ESPN2 are showing it again Thursday at like 1am or something.

Bearer--

I did not say that he was, or is, "dumb". I said that back then he was young, impressionable, and unsure of himself and how he fit into things.

And I know that for a fact.

Some wisdom comes with age in most cases. Do not make the mistake of believing that today's BJ is the same as yesterday's BJ. He was unsophisticated, credulous, and trusting.

And I know that for a fact.

I'm not apologizing for him--like I said, there were plenty of us who stayed clean. At that time, who you were around influenced you greatly, and made a big difference in how you acted. Those of us who grew up there, had gainfully employed parents, were doing well in school, and had aspirations of going to college and of a life apart from track, had different influences.

Most guys from the Caribbean operated under a different set of circumstances. College? Unheard of. Applying yourself to school? Unheard of. Any idea that you could integrate into society and work yourself into a position of respectability? Unheard of. Gainfully employed parents? Not the norm. Friends/peers who had a strong sense of self outside of sports/crime/girls? Not.

Guys like BJ were "outsiders" from the moment they arrived. They fit nowhere other than into the small immigrant community that was having a hard time of things, and that, quite honestly, offered a very limited range of role models.

This was his chance to belong to something, to be someone, to be more than he was, and to make his family more than they were. In that he succeeded MIGHTILY. He was, and still is, a hero to many because of it.

His only problem was that he believed a bit too strongly that others would help him out better than they did. There is no way that anybody should have permitted him to drink anything that they didn't know was perfect. His handlers let him down.

Yes, others were and are on drugs. To vilify someone like BJ misses the mark--he was a dupe, an experiment, in which the experimenters got a bit slack. He was complicit, but for reasons of weakness.

The same is true of many athletes who dope. The answers are to go after the bad coaches, the suppliers, and to try to give young athletes enough of a self-construct that they feel they can belong meaningfully in society without having to resort to "cheating".

What you want to go after is those who approach doping from a position of strength, with an attitude of greed. The coaches, team directors, corporate sponsors, suppliers. It is difficult to underestimate the emotional immaturity of 16-26 yr old men--or women, for that matter. Especially if they come from situations that are not conducive to the development of emotional maturity.

When I tell you he was a lab experiment, I'm not kidding.

I've seen lots of doped-up guys. I used to work and work out at a Gold's Gym that was famous for them, back in the 80's.

There is a muscular density that they achieve that is UNACHIEVABLE without roids. Like some other poster said, "their muscles have muscles".

Density--like the muscles themselves are composed of something else. It's difficult to describe.

And Johnson was the best of the best. Optimized for sprinting--not too big, developed in an unbalanced way, almost perfect. There hasn't been anyone like him, before or since.

They took him too far, IMHO. He went 9.79 He could have gone 9.76 in that very race. He would likely have gone 9.6x before he was finished. Did they NEED him to go that fast?

When he went 9.83, he crushed the old 9.93 record by a full tenth, and that 9.93 record was set at altitude! Then 9.7x? Was that really necessary? All he needed was 9.90 and he would have cleaned-up. He was WAY too far out there. People didn't just want him to win, they wanted to see how far they could take things--to experiment.

BJ seems alright now, but who knows.

And yes, it is, and was, sad--and maddening, at the same time.

Stimulants...I say that if something is on the banned list, don't use it. Period. If caught with it, you pay the price imposed. Period.

Ethically? I personally don't take ANYTHING, apart from the occasional coffee (stimulant), and even at that usually decaf. Of course mild amounts of caffeine are OK even in competition. They might give you a better performance that you otherwise would have had, if you were unable to get yourself up enough otherwise--however, over the long run, I don't think they represent any advantage in a sprinting career. Plenty of sprinters get up well for their races. Sure sometimes you flake out, but usually you are so pumped that stimulants would have little, if any, beneficial effect. There is NO stimulation like AUTO-stimulation. It affects the whole body, proportionately, leaving no weak links.

coach d wrote:

Only someone ignorant about sprinting would call Charlie Francis an idiot. He was a cheater but he knew exactly what he was doing and why.

The Charlie Francis thing is pure hype. He knew nothing about sprinting or physical training in general.