What was ben johnson time

The reaction then was arguably inflamed by our collective naivete and the revelation that our hero had cheated. We now know that doping was widespread at the time. Indeed, six of the seven competitors lining up against him in Seoul, including his training partner Desai Williams, have since fallen afoul of anti-doping rules.

It is no surprise that many Canadians now have sympathy for his plight, understanding the culture of doping that existed all those years ago. Yet he remains a pariah to sports officials, the proverbial elephant in the room. Thirty years on and, with the benefit of hindsight, should he be forgiven? Johnson remains largely remorseless. In Seoul on Sept. He was, for a time, as universally recognizable as other sports figures — the likes of Pele, Ali and Michael Jordan.

It was an attempt to assuage our collective guilt, but served only to reveal doping was pervasive in Canadian sports and not just at the very top. Second-tier athletes with lowly credentials were also cheating, often unbeknownst to their coaches. Johnson was subsequently stripped of his Olympic gold medal and the world metre record and banned for two years.

He received a lifetime ban after testing positive a second time in following his comeback. The financial implications were as severe.

Most of his endorsements were terminated and Johnson felt the pinch. The house he bought for his mother in Scarborough was sold. Today, Johnson coaches professionally and lives in a condominium in Markham. Among his clients have been Saadi Gaddafi son of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi , with whom he spent several months in , and former soccer star Diego Maradona.

He continues to work with professional hockey players. His diminishing financial security no doubt led to a lawsuit in which he unsuccessfully sued the estate of Ed Futerman, the lawyer who had represented him at the Dubin Inquiry. On September 24, , Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson runs the meter dash in 9.

Ben Johnson moved with his family to the suburbs of Toronto from his native Jamaica as a teenager, and soon after began sprinting with the Scarborough Optimists track and field club, coached by Canadian national track and field coach Charlie Francis. In , Johnson qualified for the Los Angeles Summer Olympics, where he finished third in the meters with a time of At the world track and field championships in Rome, Johnson ran the meters in a mere 9.

Though Carl Lewis ran a personal best of 9. Just as Johnson seemed to be reaching his peak, however, he injured his hamstring. After a re-injury in May , the conventional wisdom was that he would not be at full strength in Seoul.

Meanwhile, at the American Olympic trials, Lewis ran the fasted meters to that time—a wind-aided 9. On September 24, in the meter final, Johnson lined up in lane 6, while Lewis took his position in lane 3 and fellow contender Linford Christie of Great Britain lined up in lane 4.

Johnson got off to an explosive start, and though Lewis was known for his closing speed and set an American record—a non-wind-aided 9. That was my main goal, not the world record. Just to beat Carl Lewis to win. On September 27, Johnson tested positive for steroids. The International Olympic Committee refused to accept his explanation, and Johnson was stripped of the gold medal, which was then given to Carl Lewis.

The rest to be flushed out. So, if you speak to any expert on this subject, any doctor, endocrinologist, or a PhD in nutrition, or biomechanics, they will tell you the drugs only make you train harder. Level the playing field There was and probably still is the argument that athletes such as Johnson also took drugs primarily to level the playing field, in that absurdly distorted way.

Number one, technology has changed over the last 25 years. Now, the people in track and field industry are spending millions of dollars on developing tracks, hard surfaces, that are faster. And most of the tracks that they make now are down slope. So they dig it up. Yes, technology has changed, with more powerful drugs, for more oxygen in the blood.

The more oxygen in the blood, the harder to get tired, so they keep going like a race horse. Nothing else. But when we have that sort of behaviour going on, it raises enormous flags, when a country like Jamaica over-indexes dramatically in terms of athletic performance. It is a mostly chilling scenario, Johnson agreeing that things are no better than in Seoul, not that the future is without some hope.

Except that it has got worse. But hopefully athletes can get the message, now, that if you test positive, there is no excuse anymore. Or, to say they made a mistake. The one thing about this campaign is to warn people, hopefully get the message across, get athletes to sign the petition.

That I was not the only one. And for me, coming forward now, there has been great affection from the public. It was tough, to come through. His mother was the one person on earth he would not disobey. I never had a second opinion. It could have helped me, maybe. But then the problem was so big. Big money. Big sponsorship. Nobody was looking at it. I want people to see me in a good light, good way.

I want to leave some good legacy behind. Yet over the course of the interview he so repeatedly shifts between little acts of contrition and obscene egotism — with all the sudden explosiveness that marked his m start — that in the end much of what he says comes across as impossibly contradictory as his performance in Seoul 25 years ago.