1980 Olympic 100m Champion, Scottish Allan Wells, accused of doping in a BBC documentary

The belief in doping was exasperated by the charlatan Pasteur, in France, brought into the present by big pharma and the increasing profits they continue to make from deluding and brutalizing the lives of the public, the present doping in sport charade being only a small but likewise disastrous part of this.

I'm a fan of Wells as a person; he seems very bright, modest, honorable, respectful of his fellow competitors, etc.

Simply LOOKING at him in his prime, however--and having spent much time training alongside the enhanced and the drug-free, it is virtually impossible to believe THIS physique was produced without the aid of anabolics.

Yep, "Speed Trap" by Chralie Francis is an absolute must read for anyone who is interested in the history of doping in the 70s and 80s.

Read it myself only recently, and it's an excelent insight to the athletics world and endemic cheating. I find it hard to believe anyone at the top level isn't doping to some degree and drug testing then was at best rudimentary and easily avoided and at worst non-existent.

Have to factor in that serious weightlifting,

olympic lifts , werent used by sprinters

til 80's .

And at a time when be free to dope would

compliment both perfectly.

as far as know none of mentioned athletes

Lifted much ,

cant think of first sprinter to really

benefit from lifting other than johnson.

wells was all drills and circuit training

Correct me if wrong...

Dianobol was first great steroid to hit sprinting in early early 60's .

made by american company .

largely experimental use at that stage ,

that shorten many a career.

next steroid that changed track from 80's

NANDROLONE.........

unparalelled strength and joint strength

Long jump ,triple jump,high jump record aided by it

test rubbish until late 90's when many

athletes caught out by new test.use no mor

Then hgh added another dimension mid90

I starte competing in 1972 as a 14 year old. My club had a very strong group of 400m runners who had competed with Jenkins at junior levels. They were convinced he was taking steroids as early as 1972 - because of changes in his physique. they also names other British sprinters and throwers who were also doping. Jenkins himself has said that trips abroad with the UK team in the 1970s were simply an opportunity to buy loads of steroids (openly on sale in many European countries at the time). With no out of competition testing it was easy for even the most stupid athlete to avoid giving a positive test.

In the 1980s my father was a timekeeper who officiated at many international meetings in the UK (even with electronic timing manual backup is needed). He had several chats with several leading UK coaches who openly admitted that most of the big names in the UK team in the explosive events were doping. A couple of coaches said they were retiring from the highest level of coaching because of this. There is plenty of evidence that leading UK officials cooperated with the athletes to avoid positive tests. Read a called "Running Scared" by Duncan Mackay for full details.

None of the above establishes the guilt of Wells (or Frank Dick) but it is useful scene setting stuff!

Has this doc. been released? Thanks!

i don't know if Wells took drugs but he did not appear out of nowhere, nor did he have a short career

1978 Commonwealth Games

100m FINAL

1 Don Quarrie Jamaica 10.03 sec

2 Allan Wipper Wells Scotland 10.07 sec

3 Hasely Joachim Crawford Trinidad & Tobago 10.09 sec

4 James Gilkes Guyana 10.15 sec

5 Michael Anthony McFarlane England 10.29 sec

6 Paul Andrew Narracott Australia 10.31 sec

7 Christopher Anthony Brathwaite Trinidad & Tobago 10.32 sec

8 Ernest Ahwireng Obeng Ghana 10.34 sec

1978 Commonwealth Games

200m FINAL

1 Allan Wipper Wells Scotland 20.12 sec

2 James Gilkes Guyana 20.18 sec

3 Colin Bradford Jamaica 20.43 sec

4 Paul Andrew Narracott Australia 20.74 sec

5 Floyd Brown Jamaica 20.79 sec

6 Richard Hopkins Australia 20.88 sec

7 Trevor Simion Hoyte England 20.90 sec

8 Calvin Dill Bermuda 21.07 sec

1982 Commonwealth Games Brisbane

100m FINAL

1 Allan Wipper Wells Scotland 10.02 sec

2 Ben Johnson Canada 10.05 sec

3 Robert Sharp Scotland 10.07 sec

4 Paul Andrew Narracott Australia 10.09 sec

5 Michael Anthony McFarlane England 10.11 sec

6 Anthony Sharpe Canada 10.11 sec

7 Andrew Emlyn McMaster Scotland 10.16 sec

8 Desai Williams Canada 10.17 sec

9 Gerrard Michael Keating Australia 10.18 sec

1982 Commonwealth Games Brisbane

200m FINAL

1= Michael Anthony McFarlane England 20.43 sec

1 = Allan Wipper Wells Scotland 20.43 sec

3 Robert Sharp Scotland 20.55 sec

4 Paul Andrew Narracott Australia 20.65 sec

5 Michael Bruce Frayne Australia 20.72 sec

6 Anthony Sharpe Canada 20.77 sec

7 Donovan Reid England 20.87 sec

8 Graeme Lynton George Watson England 20.88 sec

9 Desai Williams Canada 21.04 sec

As well as the 1980 Olympics, Wells also competed in the 1983 World Champs, 1984 Olympics and 1986 European Championships.

Unlike a lot of people commenting on here, I've studied and used the specific training methods used by Allan Wells for the past 30 years . I have dozens of articles, videos, diaries and other information about speedball, bodyweight circuits, drills and track sessions that Wells and others who followed Scottish coach Jim Bradley's methods.

Up until 1976, Allan Wells was training for long jump. He started training with a squad based in Edinburgh that ran mainly on the Scottish Highland Games circuit. The coach was Wilson Young who had previously trained with Jim Bradley to win the prestigious New Year Sprint in 1971. At the time, Wells was around a 10.72s 100m runner. After two stints (about 3 months each time) of six days per week on Speedball and bodyweight circuits, and then a season of track work Wells put on over a stone in weight and improved to 10.3 for the 100m.

Wells was so determined & focused he felt Wilson Young (who had a full time job away from the track) was unable to devote the time Wells felt necessary he needed to reach the elite level. Therefore he went out on his own with wife Margot and another coach helping him - Bill Walker.

Drew McMaster trained with Young too and was unceremoniously dumped some time after the 1978 Commonwealth Games by Young.

Wells continued to use the methods he adopted from Young and with another couple of years under his belt, built himself up further to improve to the 10.11 (10.06 Wind assisted) PB that he ran in 1980 on the way to the Olympic Gold medal. Wells was 28 in 1980 and continued to compete on the world stage until 1986.

So his success was not overnight nor was it 'short lived'. He was incredibly consistent from 1978 to 1983, always around the 10.2 mark. Not earth shattering in these times but very competitive for the time.

McMaster has carried a chip on his shoulder since 1979 over Wells as Allan continued his improvement. This grudge has been around for over 35 years.

The Panorama doco produced no hard evidence, no dates, no specifics, no witnesses. Just the testimony from a disgruntled & discredited rival and a couple of others who refused to be identified. One of them claimed Wells went from 11 and a half stone to 14 stone which was a blatant lie. Wells never got that heavy. He ran at about 12 and a half stone. There is plenty of film of Wells competing and it's patently obvious he wasn't anywhere near 14 stone.

I did a 3 month spell in the gym in 1988, training with Jim Bradley, hitting the speedball and bodyweight circuits. I took no supplements and went from 67kgs to 73kgs. After several weeks on the track I improved about 6m over 100m. This was the norm for most people who adopted this sort of training.

Allan Wells won Olympic gold as a consequence of his manic approach to training. If you want to know what drove Wells watch this video -

https://youtu.be/_2HvtftyRPw

Ben L Wrong wrote:

New Training methods at the time? I saw training videos of Wells but i didn't see nothing "new" (unlike Borzov's regime in the late 60's, for example)

But other people may be can describe more on that matter.

He did do some pretty weird things; intervals hitting a speed-bag; lots of bounding exercises with ankle weights; exercise in what looked like a sauna...it didn't look to me like optimal training for a sprinter at all, but it obviously was hard work and I doubt others were doing his combo of things then--or had previously.