BEN JOHNSON, who 15 years ago today broke the world record to finish first in the 1988 Olympic 100 metres final, is adamant that he is history's supreme sprinter, despite having used drugs to fuel his victories. The Canadian, lauded for his victory over Carl Lewis and Linford Christie and then condemned after the title and record were stripped from him after a positive dope test, insists that he would have beaten all the men who have subsequently taken Olympic and world titles.
The exclusive article by Johnson, published today, comes at the end of a four-day scrutiny of the event and its aftermath by The Times in which new light has been cast on some of the incidents and mysteries surrounding international sport's most controversial and highly publicised race. Johnson says: "Regardless of what I did, I am still the best sprinter of all time. Most people loved the entertainment and know the game. The sport will never be clean. It's going to be going on until the end of time."
He also claims that an oppressive series of drugs tests at the Barcelona Olympic Games in 1992 sabotaged his attempt to redeem his reputation with a "clean" gold medal, but he comforts himself with the thought that "infamy is better than fame". Bob Hayes, the 1964 Olympic 100 metres champion, is the only sprinter who could have come close to him, Johnson says. Because athletics was strictly amateur in his era, Hayes had never fully realised his potential on the track when he switched to American football. In that sport, he had nine successful years as a wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys.
However, Johnson insists that his successors as Olympic champions, Christie in 1992, Donovan Bailey, his fellow Canadian, in 1996 and Maurice Greene, of the United States, in 2000, as well as Tim Montgomery, the world record-holder, would have finished behind him in the form that he was in when he triumphed at the Seoul Olympics, before being found guilty of taking stanozolol, an anabolic steroid.
Johnson points out that Montgomery's time of 9.78sec in Paris last year, that beat the Canadian's performance in Seoul by one hundredth of a second, was on the allowable wind limit for world records of two metres per second, whereas Johnson was aided by a wind of only 1.1 metres per second in the final in South Korea. In addition, Johnson believes that today's sprinters have benefited from competing on tracks that are considered faster than those used in the 1980s.
Johnson, who is now advising young sprinters in his home town of Toronto, says that he could have run 9.72sec 15 years ago if he had not "shut down at 94 metres".
Ben Johnson rasies his hand in victory....Seoul, Korea - 1988.
When he realised that he was going to win in Seoul, the Canadian raised his right hand skywards, an action that must have slowed him by a few hundredths of a second, however striking a sight it remains in the memory.
Johnson believes that if he had had a more favourable wind behind him and run right through to the finish line, he would have recorded 9.6sec. Charlie Francis, Johnson's coach, also thinks that the athlete had the potential to go under 9.7sec.
The previous year, Johnson had recorded 9.83sec while winning the world title in Rome but was clearly improving with age. Whatever Lewis may say to the contrary, Johnson was a highly talented sprinter who might have made the Olympic final even without drugs.
However, the use of anabolic steroids, that helped him to increase his power and acceleration, gave him at least an extra metre's advantage, so making him the fastest man in the world, at least until the positive drugs test was confirmed two days after the event.
Johnson twice tried a comeback after Seoul but was found guilty of doping violations each time. He says that he does not watch athletics any more. The last occasion was the 1996 Olympic 100 metres final when Bailey, whom Johnson had advised with his psychological preparation for the race, took the title.
However, Johnson does coach at the Toronto Track and Field Centre at York University and is co-operating on a television documentary on what happened in Seoul. Now 41, he still lives with his mother in Toronto.
For many Canadians, Johnson remains a sad figure. As Dr Andrew Pipe, who has chaired the Canadian Anti-Doping Agency since 1991, says: "The whole thing was tragic when you understand how Ben Johnson was, in some senses, manipulated by others and has now ended up on the ash-heap of history."
