SEVILLE SPAIN: Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson making a comeback after a two-year dope ban said on Thursday that he would retire after next year’s Olympics in Barcelona.

Johnson giving a news conference on the eve of the World indoor athletics Championships said:” After Barcelona I will be finished with track and field”.

The 29-year-old Canadian who was stripped of the Olympics gold medal he won at the 1988 Games in Seoul said his final goals would be to win gold medals this year in Seville and at the World outdoor championships in Tokyo and to capture the Olympics title in Barcelona next year.

Leroy Burrell who runs for the same club as Carl Lewis will not be here when the Canadian back after a two-year ban following his Olympics drug scandal tries to win the 60 metres gold medal.

Burrell has run a world record 6.48 sec this year but followed Lewis’ example and missed the United States Championships. That meant he could not be selected for Seville.

Johnson whose fastest this year is a hand-timed 6.3 .sec which converts to an electronic 6.54 has won three and lost three since making his comeback. His old world record set while on steroids is 6.41.

His biggest challenge could come from Cuban pair Andres Simon who lost a photo-finish to Johnson in Osaka Japan four weeks ago and Joel Isasi who beat the Canadian on the line in Karlsruhe Germany a fortnight ago.

Russia’s Vitaly Savin who has run a European record 6.49 this year and Britain’s Linford Christie who has run 6.55 should also be in at the death

Christie is going for a sprint double and the absence of superfast American Michael Johnson means his biggest rival at 200 m is Bulgarian Nikolay Anonoy who has run 20.62 to Christie’s 20.83.

Sergey Bubka who upped his pole vault world indoor record to 6.08 m in Volgograd last month is set for a new World title. The Soviet is now based in Berlin but the move has made little change to his overwhelming superiority in the event. That 6.08 m is superior to his outdoors record of 6.06 m.

Article extracted from this publication >> March 22, 1991