Ben Johnson Fails His Drug Test
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At the 1987 World Championships, in Rome, Johnson gained instant world fame when he beat Lewis for the title, setting a new world record of 9.83 seconds as well.
But, in almost every way, 1988 was not a good year for Johnson. In February of that year he pulled a hamstring, and in May he would aggravate the same injury. Meanwhile in Paris in June, Lewis ran a 9.99. Then in Zurich, Switzerland on August 17, the two faced each other for the first time since the 1987 World Championships, Lewis won in 9.93, while Johnson finished third. "The gold medal for the (Olympic) 100 metres is mine," Lewis said. "I will never again lose to Johnson."
However, it was not to be. On September 24, Johnson beat Lewis in the 100m final at the 1988 Summer Olympics, lowering his own world record from 9.83 to 9.79 seconds. Johnson would later remark that he would have been even faster had he not raised his hand in the air just before he finished the race. However, Johnson's urine samples were found to contain steroids (namely Stanozolol), and he was disqualified three days later.
He later admitted having used steroids when he ran his 1987 world record, which caused the IAAF to annul that record as well. But Johnson and hundreds of other athletes have long complained that they used doping in order to remain on an equal footing with the other top athletes on drugs they had to compete against.
His claim bears some weight in light of the revelations since 1988. Including Johnson, four of the top five finishers of the 100-meter race have all tested positive for banned drugs at some point in their careers: Carl Lewis, who was given the gold medal, Linford Christie who was moved up to the silver medal, and Dennis Mitchell. Of these, only Johnson was forced to give up his records and his medals, although he was the only one of the four who tested positive or admitted using drugs during a medal-winning performance. Later, Christie was caught using steroids and banned, although it has to be said that he was found to have metabolites of nandrolone in his urine which has been shown to be able to be produced by taking legal nutritional supplements that may erroneously contain metabolites of nandrolone (Tseng YL, Kuo FH and Sun KH, 2005) and hence may have been accidental as in numerous other doping cases relating to nandrolone. According to documents released in 2003 by a former senior US anti-doping official, Dr. Wade Exum, Lewis and two of his training partners all took the same three types of banned stimulants (ones found in over-the-counter cold medicine), and were caught at the 1988 US Olympic trials, the competition used to select the US athletes for the Olympics. Lewis had the test results overturned, however, as the use was found to be inadvertent and the result of using legal medication, not illegally obtained prescription drugs.
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