Ben Johnson must redeem his infamous performance at the Seoul Olympics to restore faith in athletic integrity.
In the last week of May, Ben Johnson ran his first 100-meter race in over two years. The world’s most infamous sprinter had gone on record, on the eve of the race, as saying that he still considered himself the fastest sprinter. But his run at the Granada Track Meet more than belied the brag. Johnson finished a dismal fight in a time of 10.54 seconds, a performance that wouldn’t even assure him gold at the Asian Games, Evidently, the two-year ban from the sport has made him rusty. But the real question is: Is Johnson, minus his steroid-intake, just another average sprinter, far from the phenomenon he was?
Johnson, in the ‘88 Seoul Olympics, had produced one of the greatest-ever exploits in track and field history when he won his 100m final in9.79 seconds against archrival Carl Lewis. The six others in contention in that race were, as Napoleon would have said, “merely number so and so”.
It was there that Johnson also created the greatest scandal in sporting history when he was found guilty of boosting himself with the strength-building steroids Dianabol and Stanozolol. Numerous offences of a similar nature have been recorded before but no single scandal was blown up to such a magnitude. Johnson was hounded and subject to calumny as few others have been. There was a near unanimity in the denigration. Johnson was not the first-man to have cheated. In fact, chicanery in some form has pervaded all walks of life, including sports. Football and hockey matches have been ‘fixed’, draws are manipulated, juries are influenced, cricket balls and pitches have been doctored: on another domain heads of nations swindle money and get re-elected, genocides are condoned.
In such a scenario, why was the condemnation of Johnson so severe? Probably because in his case, the letdown people felt was far greater. Because people had got attached to that one track-searing run of his in Seoul. Johnson was perceived as a hero and now they saw a villain under that earth. The 100m final in Seoul was possibly the most-watched event. The expectations from that race, the buildup of his rivalry with Lewis had all contributed towards the drama. To cap it Johnson, had run as no human ever had. It was deemed a historic occasion for mankind as such as man landing on the moon for the first time. The individual, his nationality did not matter, His feat did. The, Canadian had become the first man to run the 100m under 9.8 seconds a timing thought of as unattainable in this century. He had also put himself streets ahead of the others because no other sprinter had broken the 9.9 seconds barrier. It was as epoch-making an event as when Roger Parnister cracked the elusive four-minute barrier for the mile three decades back.
But unlike Bannister’s feat, Johnson’s had been powered by anabolic steroids, that the embodiment of muscularity one had seen on the track was as much fashioned in a laboratory as in a gymnasium. Johnson had opened a can of worms. And drug abuse by top atheists, which was earlier spoken of in hushed tones, was now a matter of public debate. How many others of those we adored, we wondered, were similarly guilty?
One is almost inclined to feel that the single greatest disservice Johnson did to track and field was not as much in taking drugs as in getting caught In that one moment, he vitiated track and field’ sexalted air with a whiff of doubt. Instantly, one began to doubt every extraordinary effort. The halo surrounding the world records, and the great seemingly miraculous performers, had vanished. Suddenly it had assumed the shape of a question mark.
As if Johnson had not done enough, came later, the reports that Pavo Narmi, the legendary Finnish long distance runner, need to consume a substances which is presently barred from use by the lAFF. How significant a role it played in Nurmi’s brazen domination in the Twenties and Thirties can only form a hypothesis?
Even prior to that there were reports that another Finn, Lasse Viren, who won the 5, 000m and 10,000m gold’s in successive Olympics at Montreal and Moscow, had employed blood doping techniques which became known only after he was through with his career How long the atmosphere will so remain vitiated, one cannot say, But in some way Johnson holds the key.
Soon after the indictment, when the Canadian sprinter’s future came up for deliberation before the IAAF, there was one school of thought that he should be debarred for life. Sure, they had a point. The logic was simple: by banning him for life, every present and prospective offender knows what he or she is in for, the severity of the sentence, by itself, could be a discouraging factor.
However, it is unlikely to deter those intoxicated with the perquisites accruing to the top athlete and obsessed to succeed as was Johnson. As a young lad, he was supposed to have had exceptional speed. What he lacked was the power/strength to translate it on the track. [he fire to succeed blazed in him. And hence, when his coach and doctor possibly seeing a gold mine in him administered him the banned substances, he, by his own confession, chose to remain ignorant. Johnson was, in a way, a victim of his ambition.
The IAAF decision of giving the disgraced sprinter a second chance, after a two-year ban, one feels is a less stringent but more positive method of checking the menace, If Johnson, in his reincarnation can produce performances as good, or nearly as good as in his prime, the message would go out loud and clear: that the truly great at helter drugs or no drugs retains the ability to produce top class performances. That could play a far more effective role in checking the drug menace.
That is why it is so important for Johnson to succeed as much for himself as for the sport. Perhaps Johnson’s greatest disservice to track and field was not as much in taking drugs as in getting caught. Instantly the halo surrounding the world records and the seemingly great performers had vanished and it all assumed the shape of a question mark.
Article extracted from this publication >> July 26, 1991
