The Dirtiest Race in History - How It All Played Out

16:09Mark Pou:So the last injections, Astafan gives Johnson an injection on the 24th of August and more on the 28th. so they're now 26 days to go before the olympic final plus a flushing treatment to get rid of the drugs so team johnson the three of them astophane francis johnson are probably thinking we've got plenty of time for this to get out the system it's no problem at all next stop seoul so here we are we're in seoul well let's get to the 100 meter final carl lewis says ben johnson is dirty he said it in as many words he hasn't quite libeled him he thinks it he doesn't think anyone's trying to catch him he's absolutely certain that he's on drugs he's absolutely certain the only reason johnson beating him is on drugs but lewis has failed a drugs test himself as paul's outline and is damn lucky to be at seoul and lewis's father had died the year before and he had put his gold medal in his father's hands in his coffin his mom said well you know that's amazing but you know it's yours and he said don't worry mom i'll get another one in seoul so coming up the dirtiest race in history

17:26Mark Pou:sprinters are brilliant at psychology aren't they lewis was very good at shaking hands with everybody on the blocks and they're thinking oh right he's he's a serious i like what johnson did did you read this that he was practicing he was brilliant starter brilliant out the blocks and he was practicing his starts flat out in the warm-up area. And Tom Tellez, who was Lewis's trainer, is watching him going, is there something about sprinting that he, Johnson, knows that I don't? I thought that was quite a clever psychological ploy because Lewis knew that he had been working hard on his own starts because Johnson was so explosive out the blocks.

18:04Carl Lewis:Yeah, I mean, it's worth seeing, looking at them again on that start line because if you look in sporting history for head-to-heads moments where it's a face-off, it's the biggest face-off in the world, it's the defining moment where these two egos, these two talents, these two explosive sprinters in what used to be the most important title in sport along with heavyweight champion. Yes, absolutely. And it comes down to a kind of war of nerves and a mind game on that start line. And, of course, it was dramatic enough at that point, But, you know, little did we know that, you know, a couple of days after the race, it was going to get an awful lot more dramatic.

18:42Mark Pou:Lewis is wearing an all white warm up suit. And later he said in the old Westerns, they had the guy in the white hat and the black hat. I felt like the clean guy, even though he'd failed a drug test at the trials. I felt like the clean guy going out and trying to win. I was the guy in the white hat. So he set himself up, hasn't he? I mean, it is a Western. I'm the goody. He's the baddie.

19:06Carl Lewis:Someone once explained to me about boxing promotion. They said you need a white hat fighter and you need a black hat fighter.

19:11Mark Pou:Oh, that's a boxing thing. I hadn't heard that yet. And it works as an image. Oh, yeah, yeah. Lewis is in lane three. Johnson's in lane six. When I say this, try it, because I did it immediately when I was reading this. Johnson's start is magnificent. To be fair, Lewis almost matches him. And Johnson's left hand, his lead hand, drives forward and upwards. I'm doing it now. Forwards and upwards. and his right foot pushes back with such tremendous force that he had in the past ripped the blocks out of the track. I'm hoping we just build up an image there of that's the word, isn't it? What enormous force with which he starts the race.

19:49Carl Lewis:And there's another physical detail which gives the whole game away and it's the thing that I remember most about this whole episode and it's something that was noticed by the IAAF doping control officer days before the race. it's Ben Johnson's yellow eyes. He has yellow eyes, which is the clearest possible indicator of heavy steroid abuse you could possibly see.

20:12Mark Pou:So have a look back at the old YouTubes and you'll see it. He had a saying, Johnson, when the gun goes off, the race be over. Well, he was right.

20:20Ben Johnson:And it's a fair start. And it is Raymond Durer with a start. It is Ben Johnson with a start. Can Carl catch him? No, it's Ben Johnson. Ben Johnson does it again. Unbelievable. nine, seven, nine

20:35Mark Pou:it's extraordinary he's got that gold I never quite know why sprinters run with massive chains around their neck it must be really off-put it's bouncing around violently across his chest isn't it and his chin

20:46Carl Lewis:that must have cost him a hundredth of a second the weight of the heavy chain around his neck of course we call it a race actually it wasn't a race it was over after 50 metres Johnson takes four hundredths off his own world record he runs with this heavy chain around his neck and he starts he starts showboating really 10 metres before the line. Showboating in the sense that he puts his arm in the air in a straight salute. Now, that costs him time. Yeah.

21:09Mark Pou:He runs... With his right index finger pointing to the sky, like I'm number one.

21:14Carl Lewis:Exactly. So he runs 9.79, breaking his own world record of 983.

21:21Mark Pou:983, yeah.

21:22Carl Lewis:And he takes four hundredths of his own world record. Now, do you know what? Even after he was disgraced, years and years later, Ben Johnson would always sign his name when he was asked to autograph a book or a table mat or something. Ben Johnson, 9.79, 100 metres. And his phone number, his mobile phone number, he always made sure it had 979 in it.

21:45Mark Pou:Oh, I quite like that. I was saying how much he'd got inside Lewis's head. And this is how much. So the race is, you know, give or take 10 seconds. Carl Lewis looks at Ben Johnson three times in 10 seconds. Not once, not twice, three times. And he says, yes, I was distracted. I mean, if he looked at him once, he'd have been distracted. And his coach says, what the hell are you doing? Run your race. Stay in the lane. He was in lane three. Johnson was in lane three. Three times he looks at him. And Lewis thinks, I've let my dad down. I said I win. I haven't. Johnson is quickest. So divide the 100 metres into 10 metre sections.

22:26Mark Pou:Johnson is quickest over seven of those. Lewis and Johnson's top speed, do this in your car safely next time, is give or take 27 miles an hour. 27 miles an hour. They both had pretty much the top speed. We're not far off racehorse speed there, are we?

22:44Carl Lewis:No, we're not. I'd love to know whether Carl Lewis looking across at him was political or whether he was just absolutely bamboozled by the speed of the guy. even after the race Lewis tries to photo bomb him he tries he tries to steal the uh the moment steal the limelight and Johnson so Lewis comes over ingratiating and trying to congratulate him a good loser yeah and Johnson says to Lewis uh get away from me this is my time not yours

23:08Mark Pou:wow and I think in the end Lewis grabs John because he tries to shake his hand Johnson doesn't want to do it so he grabs his arm doesn't he and makes him shake his hand absolutely makes Simon Barnes, who you know very well, who wrote for the Times for many years, he said, well, you know, as you well know, Paul, I've got to find words for this. I've got to find words for this. But apparently he said his first reaction was, fuck me when he saw that. Because four of them, first time ever, four men broke 10 seconds. So Lewis still records his personal best, despite looking at him three times, 9.92.

23:43Mark Pou:Linford Christie, British runner, champion in four years' time in Barcelona, 9.97 Calvin Smith who would be the world record holder not that far before 9.99 ergo the greatest race of all time the first four were all tested now interestingly there was a suggestion that after winning the Worlds the previous year that Ben Johnson wasn't tested because Primo Nebbiolo wanted to show him off so much because the IAAF wanted to say oh the world championships are as good as the Olympics so there's a suggestion he and Nebbiolo whisked Johnson away and fated him and wined him and dined him all night but this time no chance of that goes to the doping Not surprisingly, I said it's at lunchtime.

24:19Mark Pou:Of course, it's at lunchtime for American audiences. It's incredibly hot. He can't wee. So he has eight beers. Eight beers. So he's pissed when he turns up to the presser. But one of the beers, he says at one stage, to somebody who should not have been in there, who is a sprinter called Andre Jackson, not of his level, but had been part of the Carl Lewis running club at Santa Monica, had somehow got himself in there, effectively using one of Lewis's accreditations. At one stage, he says to Andre Jackson, oh, pass me a beer. He vaguely knew who he was. Jackson passes him a beer.

24:53Carl Lewis:Yeah, well, that's one of many conspiracy theories. His drink was spiked. The samples were tampered with. Yeah, the mystery man, the American friend of Carl Lewis. The Dubin Inquiry debunked all of those theories. And, of course, it was fun at the time for Canadians, in particular Canadian journalists, to speculate that this whole thing was a conspiracy directed by Carl Lewis and the Americans, but actually Ben Johnson was banged to rights.

25:22Mark Pou:Yeah. So there's a massive party that night. Ben Johnson, I mean, so prophetic when he's asked by a TV reporter, what means more to you? The world record or the gold medal? He says the gold medal, because they can't take that away from you. So he's got on the lash that night. Now, the first four are automatically tested. So on the Sunday, so we're now Sunday, the September the 25th, dr john c park is testing all these now he will know that the first four of the olympics are in these 100 samples he's testing all testing all and he goes wow that one's got a lot of metabolites of sanolzolol in it so immediately retested 80 nanograms i mean i barely got a science o level that's a lot apparently so he tells the authorities the head of the ioc medical commissions a man called prince alexander de maraud who had lost four years earlier the paperwork all the paperwork under his umbrella authority had gone missing or been shredded or whatever.

26:13Mark Pou:This one doesn't. Now, of course, the test tube with the we in it will just say ABC123. We don't know who it is. So he goes, ABC, Dr. Park says, ABC123 is tested positive for Stanozolol. You need to look up who it is. And so Prince Moreau is obviously going through his, well, it's 1988, probably going through his Rolodex, isn't he? And he goes, oh, shit, it's Ben Johnson. you can imagine he'd go oh shit a brick it's ben johnson yeah so he dictates a letter to the canadian olympic association and that's delivered in the early hours of monday the 26th and carol ann lutheran who's the chef de mission chef de mission's head of the team goes oh hell this is all we need and so they've got to go and tell charlie francis and charlie francis is perplexed this is about 7 a.m now on the monday morning because charlie francis is perplexed for two reasons now one he stopped taking the drug a month ago it should have been cleared from the system and two my athletes don't take senosolol they take estrogel yeah so how's he tested positive for something so he's clean not obviously he's clean because he hasn't taken this one but johnson's not surprised is he goes finally they got me johnson's waiting for to be god let's

27:23Carl Lewis:fly the flag for journalism as well here mark because it's um tuesday the 27th of september It's 2am. And the phone rings in the room of Charlie Whelan, a journalist with Agence France Press, one of the world's biggest news agencies. On the phone was Patrick Min. This is all from Richard Moore's book. Chief of the AFP's sole bureau.

27:43Mark Pou:We should say AFP is like Reuters and PAs. Exactly. Yeah.

27:47Carl Lewis:And Whelan said, I remember Patrick opening my door and saying, there's been a big drugs bust. We think it could be Ben Johnson. You are joking, Whelan replies. he wasn't and that's the start of a very impressive little sequence of investigative phone calls and questions and pressure from the afp side uh which unearths the story and of course it wings its way back to london yes where you must be able to identify oh yeah with this with your broadcasting experience uh and it and a piece of paper is placed in the hand of deslinum the you know the consummate pro uh and he says i've just been handed a piece of paper here that if it's right

28:27Ben Johnson:it'll be the most dramatic story out of these olympics or perhaps any others it says ben johnson of canada has been caught taking drugs and is expected to be stripped of his 100 meters gold medal according to international i mean i can picture where do you remember where

28:39Mark Pou:you were yeah absolutely picture i was just gone back to my house in the university the start of the second year sitting there and i was like oh shit i break can you imagine we've all had calls

28:50Carl Lewis:i can remember the i remember the the pipe bomb at the atlanta olympics in 96 that was a big one but But the call, imagine every journalist getting roused from their bed to be told Ben Johnson's tested positive.

29:01Mark Pou:I mean, the suggestion is that having lost to Lewis at the Weltklasse, even in Zurich a month earlier, even though he wasn't fully fit, that Astofan panicked and got his dates wrong and got his sums wrong. It still doesn't quite explain the stenozolol, estrogol, steroid differential. How come a different drug was in his system? But maybe Astafhan gave him that as well, which he hadn't before, whatever.

29:27Carl Lewis:Well, this is all manner for Ben Johnson, of course, who can who can present himself as the victim of an American conspiracy. Completely. And there's a really interesting pattern where he calls, you know, the suppression of the US positive test at the Olympic trials in 88. He calls that corruption. He says America always wants to be the best. he says that the authorities pick and choose who they want to nail for for drug use he says that Canada was willing to abandon him so that they could say he's the only one we cleaned the stables Johnson's gone everything can carry on as normal so he's full of this idea that that he's the victim in all this and he says in the Canadian breakfast show interview that I think we both watch he says we are the slaves of track and field we are the guys that make them lots of money what he doesn't mention is at the height of his power he was driving a ferrari testa rossa so the

30:24Mark Pou:suits weren't the only ones getting rich absolutely and jamie astephan his doctor did him in the dub and inquire the canadian government to be completely transparent basically launched this inquiry and subpoenaed everybody so they all have subpoena means you have to turn up and they said to jamie asked a fan you know did you do it and did you do it in in connivance with ben johnson he said yes he said how do you know he went because i taped it because i taped our phone calls and he said well why did you take them in case the shit hit the fan yeah so he completely nailed him yeah nailed him and ben johnson having denied everything deny deny deny sounds like somebody else deny deny deny jamie astephan comes out with this adubbin inquiry and he goes i'm banged to rights so interesting how the canadian population turned on because you know brian malroney had that the prime minister had congratulated him in the stadium after winning the 100 meters.

31:13He goes from Canadian sprinter to Jamaican-born Canadian sprinter.

31:18Mark Pou:And of course, there's a racist undertone to all this as well with what happens. This whole Andre Jackson line is just worth exploring for a couple of minutes because he goes and meets Andre Jackson much later in life. And he goes, you know, basically, did you nubble me? I don't eat beers. I asked you to pass me a beer. Did you nubble me? And Johnson has said, maybe I did, maybe I didn't. But Joe Douglas, just remember he's Carl Lewis's agent, does admit that they, the Lewis camp, put or got or facilitated Jackson's entry into the doping control room because you should not have been able to get in there.

31:55Mark Pou:And so someone said, well, why did you do that? Because we thought Johnson was using a masking agent. So we wanted to make sure that he wasn't or that we could prove he was so that's why andre jackson exactly there's a huge difference between andre

32:11Carl Lewis:jackson monitoring what was happening in the doping control room to see whether johnson was up to anything to conceal uh the fact that he was cheating and actually handing him a bottle of beer with with with stenozolol which which i would say almost certainly didn't happen but it made sense for the lewis camp to try and get somebody in there to see what was going on it came out in

32:31Mark Pou:the inquiry that stenozolol, the drug we all heard about then, is a veterinary drug and that Jamie Astephan was ordering so much of it that that's what they thought he was. The company who sold it thought, well, he must be a vet because this is a drug you basically inject horses sort of to boost them just before they're slaughtered. I'm going to mix a metaphor. He was a horse to slaughter in many ways, wasn't he? Ben Johnson at the hands of his drug doctor.

33:12Mark Pou:So the sort of postscript to this and to finish is, there are lots of reasons it's called the dirtiest race in history. Ben Johnson testing positive, Carl Lewis testing positive in the US trials, dirty because in a way they fought dirty with each other, but also because of the eight men who lined up on the start line, only two never failed a drug test. Robson de Silva, a Brazilian in lane one, clean. Lane two, Ray Stewart. He never tested positive per se, but he was embroiled in a drug scandal in 2010. He was accused, wasn't he, in terms of selling. Lane three, Carl Lewis. Lane four, Linford Christie, British champion 1992, who talked about abiding by the walls and hard work, suspended in 1999 for two years for testing positive for nandrolone lane five calvin smith the only other one never to fail a test former world record holder promoted to bronze after johnson's disqualification ben johnson lane six another canadian lane seven desi williams lifetime ban in 2010 for sexual harassment policy while a coach and in lane eight dennis mitchell 1998 two-year ban for too much testosterone which he put down to five bottles of beer and sex with my wife four times on her birthday because the lady deserved a treat i remember that one i remember that being the most fanciful explanation of i'm such a stud of all time yeah that's why i failed

34:42Carl Lewis:and he actually thought that would work um yeah yeah so we've established that six of the eight runners in that 88 final subsequently tested positive in some way or another again this is not the end of the story in terms of dirty races in london 2012 the women's 1500 meters became infamous when five of the 12 finishers in that final uh were disqualified for retroactive doping offenses so that's that 1500 meter women's final in this runs the sole race pretty close in

35:16Mark Pou:some ways just without such big names i suppose yeah household names what we think of as the

35:21Carl Lewis:greatest olympics of all time mainly because they were staged in this country and they were fantastic let's face it 149 athletes subsequently tested positive because there was retroactive testing most of them were from russia a third were from russia and the majority of those 149 95 of them were competing in athletics okay so that tells you that soul was by no means the end of doping in track and field let me read out some names of top sprinters um of the last 20 years many of them household names tyson gay banned johan blake banned asafa powell banned justin gatlin banned twice christian coleman banned i could go on justin gatlin olympic champion 2004 correct absolutely i could go on and on so the feeling is still i think that well that it's not feeling it's a fact that performance enhancing drugs are still endemic in track and field but you know when you think about the how flagrant they are sometimes the eye always comes back to this race in soul and ben johnson's yellow eyes steaming down that track with an absolutely abnormal amount of muscle and power built into his body from seven years of anabolic steroid abuse and then you have carl lewis alongside him who failed three drug tests in the u.s olympic trials but was still allowed to take his place in seoul the fascination of that race is that it was a it was an incredible exhibition of sprinting brilliance and power but only because it came from a bottle you came from a bottle 88 made it impossible to pretend any longer it removed the pretense that this was a this was a sort of legitimate spectacle and i think it broke the spell it broke the spell of what was the one of the greatest titles in world sport one of the as I said earlier.

37:13Carl Lewis:So it's never been the same since.

37:15Mark Pou:Well, the 88 championship got a drugs ban. The 92 championship, Linford Christie, seven years after, got a drugs ban. The 2004 champion, Justin Gatling, got two drugs bans. I mean, that's why inevitably, and I've mentioned it already, Usain Bolt winning three in a row, A, the saviour, please, please no.

37:33Carl Lewis:Yeah. Well, yeah.

37:34Mark Pou:And in a way, you know, that's why people say Usain Bolt saved track and field up to a point.

37:39Carl Lewis:Yeah, I suppose in conclusion, and we should say that if anyone listening to this wants to go back and watch that 8 ,800 metre men's final, the only sensible advice is don't try this at home.

37:48Mark Pou:Well, I thought that was fascinating and we very much hope you did too. So please remember to subscribe to the podcast on Global Player or wherever you get your podcasts from. Tell your friends about us too. We're always discussing stories to cover, but we'd love to hear your input. So please let us know. Please have a look at this story A, or you really enjoy B, or that's really fascinating for C, particularly in the context of today, which we're always really keen about as well. The email is howitallplayedout at global.com. And we'll see you next time.

38:24Mark Pou:How It All Played Out is presented by me, Mark Pugach, and Paul Hayward. It's a global original production in association with Apex Content Ventures.

38:36Ben Johnson:This has been a Global Player original production.