Was FloJo clean?

It wasn't just her physique that changed, her face changed too.

FlowingOnTheJoe wrote:

To compete with East Germany and Russia I’m guessing no. Thoughts?

No.

If you are asking this question, you already know the answer.

Well, Usain Bolt used to win by the same margin, and I never heard anyone asking "Was Bolt clean?"

Not sure what else to tell you, dude; but that’s how it happened. You’re more than welcome to believe what you want.

One afternoon, several years ago, I was out at the track at UCLA and some old Russian man (with the stereotypical deep accent) came by and started talking to me. He said he was around when FloJo was there. He said it was extraordinary how fast she was during her workouts. He said he saw her with his own eyes taking things in syringes all the time.

Could he just be angry that she beat the Soviets so he's slandering her? Could he be telling the truth? We'll never know.

I heard very similar things from several Olympians from 1988. Distance runners who heard in and around the stadium areas that Flo Jo had been busted after the 100 final - identical to the buzz before Ben Johnson was busted after the M 100 final. But no announcement came and she continued to compete. Rumors these Olympians heard as the games went on where very similar to what has been expressed here already...

100% science experiment wrote:

SDSU Aztec wrote:

That's ridiculous. A decision like that was made with a reporter in the room? She was also tested at the trials, so the cover-up would have involved several lab techs and and at least two labs. The decision would have had to go to the top so there could have been as many as twenty people involved and that included one that spilled the story to a 19-year old. That would have been a massive story at the time and for sure a lab tech would have sold it for big bucks.

Not sure what else to tell you, dude; but that’s how it happened. You’re more than welcome to believe what you want.

Didn't Joaquim Cruz get in a lot of trouble for saying she wasn't clean?

I believe she paid a great deal of attention to her personal appearance and it would follow that she paid attention to personal hygiene. Her hair and makeup was always done just right for competitions.

Modern synthetic tracks, where she did most of her running and training, are much cleaner than the old cinder tracks.

The custom racing outfits she wore were spotless.

So I believe she was clean in those respects.

Regarding clean as in not using PEDs, I doubt it.

Some of the most questionable female athletes tend to overemphasize the more traditionally feminine practices, like paying lots of attention to doing their hair, makeup, and clothes. Its almost as if they are trying to overcompensate for bulging muscles,which some believe are more masculine.

And what is with some studly women athletes and mustaches? They will shave, style. primp and groom all the other hair on their bodies, but their long haired dark mustaches are allowed to remain as is. Are they in denial about these staches? Do they grow so fast that its hard to keep them groomed? Do they keep them to intimidate others?

There aren't a lot of sure things in this world, but FloJo being juiced to the gills is one of them...

SHE trained with Ben Johnson her last year. I saw a before and after photo. Definitely on the juice.

What's the count against FloJo? If you go by that, clearly she was not clean.

No doubt, she trained hard and developed great form. No one is disputing that, all the more reason to quit early and maintain your legacy.

But she is far from the only one!

Thank you! I thought I was the only one that noticed that mustache

Was Bolt on drugs? wrote:

Well, Usain Bolt used to win by the same margin, and I never heard anyone asking "Was Bolt clean?"

People do ask that about Bolt. But Bolt didn't carve half a second off his best 100m time in a year to set his wr, or nearly a sec off his previous best 200m time.

My legitimate response to reading this title: ha ha hahahahahahhaha hahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahaha... hahahahahahhaha..hahahaha. I can’t think of anything more obvious in the history of anything. FloJo and Carl Lewis are the 2 most obvious frauds in the history of sport.

gwalkerruns wrote:

SHE trained with Ben Johnson her last year. I saw a before and after photo. Definitely on the juice.

She never trained with Ben Johnson. Read Charlie Francis’s book Speed Trap. He was Johnson’s coach and offers a detailed account of his training. Joyner did not train with Johnson’s team.

Astounding naivete.

Flojo was dirty but she was not "mediocre." She won 200m silver at the 1984 Olympics. That said, going from one of the best in the world to the best of all time over one year was due to heavy PED use. Her body and voice changed dramatically over one year. The 1988 Olympics was probably the dirtiest Olympics of all time with East and West athletes doping indiscriminately.

Found this great (in an ironic sense) article from CNN in 2012:

https://www.cnn.com/2012/08/10/sport/olympics-flo-jo-seoul/index.html

"Saving Flo-Jo: Taking Back a Legacy".

There's some priceless stuff in there...

But her improvement was so great, her times so exceptional, the change in her physique so profound that, for most, drugs -- steroids -- was the only answer.

"It was jealousy," Joyner tells CNN, denying that Flo Jo ever took drugs.

"I trained her like a man. We did a lot of things then that they do now with nutrition. The things that separated her were her mental focus and toughness. She was humble. My wife was great then and she is great now."

...The other ingredient, according to Joyner, was purchased in a local K-Mart.

"We bought a $150 leg exercise machine and she did leg curls every night. More than 20 lbs every night to build up the strength in her legs. She was working 12 hours a day."

...Her preparations hadn't been great. She ran an 11 second plus time at a meeting in Sweden and then, according to Joyner "10.89 in Gateshead, London (sic)." Although, on closer examination, that was into a headwind and was still as fast as British sprinter Linford Christie could muster, the man who won silver in the men's 100 meters.

..."We performed all possible and imaginable analyses on her," the president of the International Olympic Committee's medical commission, Prince Alexandre de Mérode, said at the time.

"We never found anything. There should not be the slightest suspicion."

Assuming she took PED's, and that husband Al helped facilitate that, it must be difficult for him to deal with her early death, knowing that the drugs might have contributed. Especially given

the fact that they have children. Perhaps that's why the press has been somewhat reluctant to push too hard. Probably a reasonable approach, tbh.

100m

Florence Griffith Joyner (United States) - 10.49 (0.0 m/s)

16 July 1988, US Olympic Trials, Indianapolis, United States

This race was the quarter-final of the U.S. Olympic trials in 1988. It was wind-aided and drug-aided!

The wind gauge was faulty for the race in which Florence Griffith Joyner set this record.

A 1995 report commissioned by the IAAF estimated the true wind speed was between +5.0 m/s and +7.0 m/s that day in Indianapolis, rather than the 0.0 recorded.

See the video of this race on youtube.

You can clearly see her hair blowing in the wind at the start line and after the race.

Florence Griffith Joyner (aka ‘Flo Jo’) was on Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs) big time in the 1980’s. As a result she started to grow facial had, her voice deepened, her muscles became bigger and she started running super fast.

A workout she did in 1988 involved a time trial of two 600m runs. Where she had to go through the first 400m in 49 seconds. So she was approaching the world record even in workouts. Crazy.

Because she did PEDs to such an extreme extent, she died of the long term side effects in 1998 at the age of 38.