randomcoach--
You are correct, Johnson was a good starter before the 'roids, in part because he was thinner and weighed much less...but I must ask, how is it that you know?
I know because I saw him all the time while in the Optimist club, but how do you know?
But, it WAS only the juice that let him start like that. What I mean by that is not only the formal execution of the jump start, but the FAST execution of the jump start. Anybody can do the jump start--I can do it myself, and use it on occasion, for amusement--but unless you are juiced, the start will not be as fast as other starts, like the shuffle start. Ashmeade's recent attempt is a good example.
So, what I mean is that the juice enabled Johnson to execute that start fast, something that has not been possible for any clean athlete to yet do. Compare a massively doped Johnson's start speed in 1987 and 1988, to his much-less-doped or even clean start speed at the 1992 trials, using the same jump start:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z894i3LU_do
The form is the same, and he executes the start without getting buried--but the start is only of mediocre speed, impossible to do fast without the juice. He would have gotten buried had he tried to do it any faster.
I like Ashmeade trying it, though. I think that if an athlete learned that start young, and developed in response to its demands, then he might be able to execute it fast as an adult, while being clean. Is Ashmeade young enough for the required adaptations to occur? I don't know. Is Ashmeade clean? I don't know. But it will be interesting to see if he sticks with it, and to what degree he can execute it when it matters.