Johnson’s, fall ‘a blessing’

Press, 11 October 1988, Page 24

Johnson’s, fall ‘a blessing’

NZPA-AP Tokyo The Olympic champion, Carl Lewis, said the detection of Ben Johnson’s use of banned drugs, which got him booted out of the Olympics in shame, was a "blessing” for sports.

Lewis also said he could run faster even without Johnson, the world record holder and his main rival for the last two years, to push him. “I believe in a way it’s definitely a blessing," Lewis said after winning the 100 m sprint in 10.09 seconds in heavy rain in a Tokyo meet. “When we go back, we not only have to talk about the drug situation, we have to fight it,” Lewis said. "We have to advance the sport, and advancing the sport only comes by fighting things that are detrimental to it.” For 48 hours in Seoul a fortnight ago, Johnson was the fastest man alive after leaving Lewis and a host of others trailing in his wake.

Johnson clocked the 100 m in 9.79 seconds, a hefty 0.04 seconds under his previous world record.

But after drug testers found the muscle-building steroid stanozolol in Johnson's urine, the champion’s participation in the Games was erased from the record books and Lewis’s 9.92 seconds became the new Olympic record. No other man has won the 100 m at two consecutive Olympic Games.

But Lewis said man would run 100 m in 9.79 seconds again — without the aid of performance - enhancing drugs. "I believe it’s definitely possible. The way I’ve run this past season shows me that I can run much faster,” he said.

“Last year I ran an isolated race or two that were fast,” he said "This year I was able to put together more races under 10 seconds than anyone else has in their entire career.”

Now Johnson is gone for at least two years, banned from all international competition.

Lewis estimates that is about how long he has left himself, so the back-to-back Olympic champion and the deposed sprint king may never face each other on the track again.

But Lewis said he does not need Johnson or Johnson’s legacy — the current 9.83 world record — to push him.

Lewis turned in an astonishing 9.78 seconds in the 100 m at the United States Olympic trials in July, although it did not qualify as a record because the wind was stronger than the permissible 2 metres per second. "Every year, every race, every competition I try to strive for a better time, a better performance," Lewis said. “I think that’s the main thing it takes to be a champion."