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But they had become an essential ingredient within a complex recipe.”
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“They could not transform a plodder into a champion. “Steroids could not replace talent, or training, or a well-planned competitive program,” Francis said. Johnson’s coach, the intense and ambitious Charlie Francis, was both fluent and relaxed while continuing to conceal an explosive back story which shocked the world when he revealed all to a Canadian government inquiry in the following year.ĭuring the 1976 Montreal Games, Francis realized drugs were a vital ingredient in the East German success story and, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, formerly secret documents showed he was right.įrancis also knew that drugs, which allowed athletes to train harder and longer, were only one element in a sophisticated program but at the elite level, as he explained to Johnson, a one percent difference in performance meant a one-meter advantage in the 100 meters. Johnson, whose natural shyness was exacerbated by a stutter and an accent showing traces of both his native Jamaica and his adopted homeland, said little. The noise and furor at Seoul airport when Lewis and Johnson arrived for the Olympics resembled the frenzy associated with a world heavyweight prize fight featuring Muhammad Ali.Īt the opening media conferences, Lewis was as articulate as always.
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If Lewis had been banned from the Games and Christie disqualified, Smith would have been next in line for the gold medal and his world record would have stood once Johnson’s times were scrubbed from the books. Olympic Committee after it accepted his plea that he had innocently taken a herbal supplement.Ĭhristie failed a test for the stimulant pseudoephedrine after the final but was cleared on a split decision by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) medical commission when he argued that he had taken it inadvertently in ginseng tea. Under the rules of the time he should have been banned from the Games but the results were covered up by the U.S. The skeptics felt vindicated when it was revealed in 2003 that Lewis had failed three drugs tests for stimulants during the 1988 Olympic trials. Not everybody warmed to Lewis and his incessant self-promotion coupled with a holier-than-thou attitude to drugs offenders. “I felt like the clean guy going out and trying to win, I was the guy in the white hat, trying to beat this evil guy.” “In the old Westerns they had the guy in the white hat and the black hat,” Lewis said years later. It was an image Lewis was keen to foster. In the popular mythology of the time Lewis, a glorious sprinter and long jumper who won four gold medals at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, was the clean-cut hero and Johnson a scowling villain. Smith won consecutive world 200 meters titles but never a global 100 gold. Johnson’s time in Rome was an astonishing tenth of a second faster than Smith’s then world record of 9.93 seconds set at altitude in 1983. Lewis’s time was eventually recognized as the official world record when Johnson’s mark of 9.83 seconds, set at the 1987 Rome world championships, was also erased. Lewis, who clocked 9.92 seconds, was promoted to the gold medal ahead of Britain’s Christie who then took the silver in front of Smith. “I knew I was competing against athletes who were on drugs.”Ĭanadian Johnson was infamously hustled out of Seoul after testing positive for the steroid stanozolol following his victory in a world-record 9.79 seconds. “Throughout the last five or 10 years of my career, I knew I was being denied the chance to show that I was the best clean runner,” he told journalists. “I should have been the gold medalist,” Smith has said of a race that has been variously described as the dirtiest and most corrupt in history. Today he is the only man among the first five finishers in Seoul untouched by a drugs scandal.
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On the day that changed the face of the Olympics and his sport forever, Smith finished fourth behind Ben Johnson, Carl Lewis and Linford Christie. (R) across the finish line to win the men's 100 meters sprint final at the Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, September 24, 1988. (2nd L), Linford Christie of Britain (2nd R) and Carl Lewis of the U.S. Ben Johnson of Canada (L) leads Calvin Smith of the U.S.