MOST people still love Ben Johnson. Regardless of what I did, I am still the best sprinter of all time. Most people loved the entertainment and they know the game. The sport will never be clean. It's going to be going on until the end of time. And to watch yourself grow up from a young kid, train hard, make progress and win the World Championships and Olympic Games - it's a great feeling.
Infamy is better than fame. I am still known worldwide. The only sprinter maybe better than Ben Johnson was Bob Hayes (the 1964 Olympic 100 metres champion). If you put Donovan Bailey, Maurice Greene and Tim Montgomery in my race in Seoul, they would finish behind me. It was the greatest race ever run. Every ten-metre segment was perfect, all the way down the track.
I don't count Montgomery's world record.
Ben Johnson beating Carl Lewis (in red)....Seoul, Korea - 1988
The wind speed for Montgomery was two metres per second. I had 1.1 metres per second in Seoul. I could have run 9.72 if I had not shut down at 94 metres. If I'd had a 1.6 or 1.8 behind me and not shut down, I would have run 9.6. If these guys - Bailey, Greene, Montgomery - were in their prime and I was in mine, they would finish second. Track surfaces now are a lot faster than I was using.
I never remember the date of that race because I have so many things going on in my life. I do some professional coaching and I am working on a television documentary about what happened in Seoul. I have a book going on and I have the Ben Johnson sports line coming out. We are just getting the logo done and the factory has just started making the garments. We are pushing it just before the Olympic Games next year.
I remember the month and the year of the race, but not the exact date. I never wake up and think, 'today is the anniversary'. History was made - I don't really care about the time and date. What will I be doing on the fifteenth anniversary? I will be here in Toronto and whatever comes up that day I will do.
I just love my life away from track and field.
Ben Johnson rasies his hand in victory....Seoul, Korea - 1988.
I don't watch the sport any more. It's a waste of time. Nobody impresses me. Nobody can run like Ben Johnson. The last track meet I watched was the 1996 Olympic men's 100 metres final in Atlanta, because I had told Donovan Bailey how to run and how to conduct himself in a mental fashion.
He phoned me and said that Linford Christie and all those guys were doing psychology on him and he could not deal with it. So he called me from Atlanta and I told him a few tricks. I believe about 20 per cent of his victory came from me - 20 per cent was the mentality. By what I said to him, he maintained a focus and energy. He thanked me on the phone, but then he came on TV and said Ben Johnson should not get a chance to compete again. He was afraid I was going to take the limelight from him.
After my ban ended in 1990 I was making a great comeback, but I went out in the semi-finals of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics because my federation sabotaged me. They could not live with Ben Johnson making a great comeback. If I had come back and won the Olympic Games, I would have been bigger than the Olympics. They could not live with that, so somebody had to set me up again.
I had been tested in every race I had run in Europe in 1991 and 1992 and everything was clear. I was running fast, running clean. They drug-tested me five times in the Olympic Village in one day because they knew I was in great shape and they didn't want me to win the Olympics again. It would have been embarrassing for the IAAF, the IOC and maybe my federation.
They drug-tested me the day before the race and I didn't get to bed until the morning of my first round at 9.30. I got through two rounds but the next day I could not hold on because my body had not recovered from two days earlier. They used up all my energy and it affected my performance. That's why Linford Christie won the Olympic Games.
