Would Ben Johnson Have Been OG Champ Without PEDs?

Apparently blank post are not allowed, even with pictures.

Orestes wrote:

Had Ben Johnson not taken steroids or any other PED, would he still have been the Olympic champ and one of the world's greatest sprinters?

Obviously he was extremely talented, since to get down to 9.79 takes enormous talent even with PEDs.

Discuss.

No, and he and Charlie Francis will be the first to tell you that he wouldn't have.

He competed at a high level before his huge breakthrough and after his suspension, but was not near 9,79. He was then much thinner, so obviously the steroids helped him to build muscle mass that made him a lot faster.

No, he was a 10.10 guy at best.

Orestes wrote:

Had Ben Johnson not taken steroids or any other PED, would he still have been the Olympic champ and one of the world's greatest sprinters?

What's to discuss? If he could have been Olympic champ WITHOUT cheating, then why bother cheating?

Which question are you asking:

1) If no sprinters took PEDs could Johnson have been one of the best in the world?

I recall that according to his coach's book, he might have been about a 10.1 sprinter without PEDs. This might have been the fastest in the world if nobody else was using.

2) If Johnson didn't use PEDs and most everyone else was (which is probably true), could he have been one of the best in the world.

Definitely no.

If you think 10.1 would be the fastest in the world if nobody was losing then you need a reality check man......

That's like saying 3:59 would be the fastest mile if no one was using.

He would have been an also ran at big meets if he wasn't soped to the gills.

And there's the thing that really bugs me about doping. You can't know. Johnson was good obvously, but you really can't tell. How much of a mental boost is taking steroids? Sometimes I wonder if the second-tier guys who get busted (e.g. Cathal Lombard) have a clue what they're doing, and whether their amatuer doping efforts have any real physical effect.

The other really tragic thing about doping is there could never be another Billy Mills. If Mills won the 10,000 in the next Olympics, instead of 1964, would anyone believe it was a genuine performance? Of course not, he'd get the same treatment as Ramzi.

Orestes wrote:

Had Ben Johnson not taken steroids or any other PED, would he still have been the Olympic champ and one of the world's greatest sprinters?

Obviously he was extremely talented, since to get down to 9.79 takes enormous talent even with PEDs.

Discuss.

Ben Johnson was NOT the Olympic champion; when he tested positive after the race, he was stripped of the title and the medal. If you look up the 1988 Olympic 100m in Seoul, Carl Lewis is listed as the winner as a result of Johnson's disqualification.

Would Carl have been Olympic champ if he wasn't HGH'ed?

Fanatic wrote:

Ben Johnson was NOT the Olympic champion;

He most certainly WAS. But of course he's not now.

No not even close he was a guy who was placing 5th and 6th in Americas zone meets. That would be about 8th at best on the world stage. The Americas(really Carib and American) dominance wasn't as pronounced as it is now so he might have been even worse. He was just a guy who responded very well to a cutting edge anabolic steroid program for the 80's.

I love Ben Johnson. I did when I was a kid in 88, and I still do now. Legalize all drugs.

His start was phenomenal with or without peds ,but he didn't have strength to hold it. Back than drive phase didn't exist, everybody rose and just went in. I like how Ben Johnson calls him greatest sprinter of ALL time ,still living in illusions...

Most likely the PEDs took 0.2-0.3 off his time, so he would have still been an Olympian but not a medalist.

his unorthodox start with both feet almost together was contingent upon generating ridiculous amounts of strength. He shot out like a swimmer. He's the only runner to ever do this. Many people attribute this ability to drugs. But lets not be naive and assume he was the only one on drugs in that era

Of course he wasn't the only one on drugs in this era... Every american sprinter (remember Carl was busted for many substances during the trials prior to Seoul) and all the athletes from Germany and other western european countries were doped to the gills!

Pretty sure he would be running at least 9.6x if he ran nowadays, and proly faster then the WR. (He is a freak even superior to Bolt physically).

A few things, from one who knows:

He absolutely would not have won that race in 1988, nor did he win either of those races in 1984 and 1992. If he had lasted, there is no way he could have won in 1996.

1996 and 1988 were won in WR times, so the question in those years reduces to whether or not he would have been the best-ever, without PED's. Not a chance. And he actually ran in 1992 and 1984, and did not win, so those 2 years are definitive.

To the coach who said that nobody else has ever been able to deliver his start, that is false. I myself can do it--in fact, just before the Olympic 100m final this year, I demonstrated it to an Italian coach who works internationally.

Also, Ashmeade tried it once this year, and Surin used it at least once internationally.

It can be done, but it takes 'roids to be able to do it really quickly, without getting buried within the first 3 steps. Without 'roids, by doing it, a sprinter does not set themeselves up well for what we have come to call the drive phase. In fact, it requires a different sort of "drive phase" entirely, one that must be muscled in order to succeed.

I have tried myself to hybridize the system, by using the jump start and recovering to a normal drive phase, to no avail. My thoughts on this have been confirmed by many, including most recently the Italian coach.

Somebody might be able to do it, but that someone would not have been a clean Ben Johnson.

Also, Johnson could have gone maybe 9.77 in that Seoul race. Let him keep training, give him a good wind, and let him run on a modern track surface, and he is good for 9.6x--IN 1988! Johnson had to be seen to be believed. You cannot appreciate his roided magnificence unless you have lined up beside him.

Sure there have been guys since who have had better 10m segments within the first 60m of a 100m race--notably Maurice Greene, or Johnson 2.0--but that was due to that muscled post-jump-start drive phase that I was talking about. If Johnson had been able to hybridize properly, he would have gone low 9.6x Contrary to popular belief, his SE was actually pretty decent in 1988. I personally don't believe that he could have ever achieved the maximum velocities we see from guys like Bailey, Bolt, and Gay, but he would have blown away all those guys over the first 60m, yes even Bolt, had he been allowed to continue.

I still think that Bolt would be the fastest overall, but not by much. Johnson would be second. Not even a juiced Johnson could beat 9.58, same way as there is no chance of a juiced Greene (Johnson 2.0), a juiced Carter (Johnson 3.0), or a juiced Blake (Johnson 4.0) ever beating 9.58

Do you guys have any idea how far ahead 9.58 is? It is the 10.49 of men's sprinting.

So far in 2012, by unadjusted times, only Bolt is even in the 9.6'x, and then only once. Only 2 other guys are even in the 9.7's--Blake and Gatlin--and even then, they needed decent wind, and were only mid-to-high 9.7x

And this was supposedly the fastest track in history.

The only person who has any shot right now is Blake, and his shot is zero. Blake is now, where Johnson was in 1988, and doesn't exhibit anywhere near the same room for improvement as existed in Johnson's race, IMO.

9.58 is here to stay, unless Bolt decides to take it down, maybe by running in Rieti this year.