The Race that Shocked the World

'There must be between 90,000 and 100,000 people in the stadium.

'In fact, competitors have jammed into the aisles to watch the race.

'The 1988 final of the Olympic 100 metres.'

'Possibly the greatest field ever assembled

'for the finals of an Olympics.'

'Lane one, Da Silva of Brazil.

'10.24 in the semi-final.'

What a race!

This is the race of the century.

'Lane two, Ray Stewart, the bronze medallist in the world championship.'

I was a warrior.

When the gun go,

catch me if you can.

'Lane three, the reigning Olympic champion,

'Carl Lewis.'

If you make one mistake in the 100 metres, you lose.

If you have a bad start, you have 99 yards to be pissed.

'Linford Christie, he goes in lane number four.'

That's the loneliest time.

Then, I don't have a friend in the world.

'Lane five, the former world record holder, Calvin Smith.'

Athletes can see everything that is going on

and they know more than the public will ever know.

'Lane number six, from Canada, the number of one all time,

'world champion, world record holder, Ben Johnson.'

I just had some fear in me so I didn't want to fail.

'Desai Williams, at 29, the oldest of the finalists.'

You'll close your eyes

and you'll just vision running that perfect race.

'Lane number eight, he mustn't be forgotten, Dennis Mitchell.'

It's just another competition, it's just another race.

That's the way you have to think about it.

He lets them go first time and Ben Johnson got a brilliant start.

'It's Johnson away and clear. They can't catch him now.

'And Lewis is not going to catch him. Johnson wins it.

'Lewis second. Christie third.

'And the world record has gone again.

'And that is the greatest 100 metres the world has ever seen.'

I've just been handed a piece of paper, here, that if it's right,

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 metres gold medal

'according to International Olympic Committee sources.

'Johnson took anabolic steroids before his historic victory

'over Carl Lewis on Saturday...'

OK, 15,000 mails comes in between '88 and '93.

They come from all over the world. Support, people who have sent money.

Tons. These are not even open.

"My name is Kelly. And I am ten years old.

"I go to Silver Creek public school."

A lot of stuff here.

This is all my certificate and my trophies.

Maybe over 1,000.

'This was not the Olympic homecoming of Ben Jonson's dreams.'

These are some personal licence plates that I have.

Souvenir, I guess.

In 1988, Ben Johnson failed a drug test at the Olympic games in Seoul.

SHOUTING

Just 48 hours earlier, he'd set a new world record in the 100 metres,

won the gold medal, and defeated his archrival, Carl Lewis.

-Is Ben Johnson our hero now?

-ALL: No.

In the years after Seoul,

six of the eight finalists have been implicated in some form of controversy

involving performance-enhancing drugs.

And Johnson has long believed he was the fall guy in a sport

where steroid use was endemic.

When I look back on my life,

and I see what people have done to me, I just laugh,

because once I was very powerful

and they were afraid of me.

Falmouth was a small town in Jamaica.

There was a disease going round that, here,

all the kids that were born that year died.

I have a brother that passed away.

He would be 50-years-old now, if he was alive. His name was Norman.

I was about three or four pounds. Very skinny.

The doctors say to my mother, if this child save, he's a miracle.

There's nothing we can do for him.

And my mum prayed to the Lord, and said,

"Lord, if you save my child, I will serve you until the day I die."

So, when I was saved, I know that I was a special child.

And God has saved me to do something good in this lifetime.

When Ben was nine, his mother moved to Canada.

He followed five years later,

moving into her cramped apartment in suburban Toronto.

When I came to Canada,

a few bullies in the school tried to push me around,

since I was the only black kid.

I got a lot of beating.

So I was getting very tired of it.

I decided to challenge them for a race.

100 metres. Everybody started gathering around.

Friends calling friends.

"Come over and look at this. Something's going on."

And then we line up, the teacher came over, and started us.

I beat him by, maybe, a metre and a half.

From that time, he never said anything to me.

Before you can judge me, walk a mile in my shoes.

I was born in St Kitts, which is a small island in the Caribbean.

We moved to Canada back in 1973.

I pretty much cried every day that we came,

not just because of the weather,

you know, the culture shock and being a kid of colour.

Every single person that looked at me,

and said negative things to me,

that I'd never amount to anything, never would accomplish anything,

I used that as my driving force to make myself better.

One of my buddies said to me, "Hey, if you join this track club,

"you get free gear."

I'm like, "Free gear? What you talking about?"

And you get to travel in the summertime, and as a 16-year-old,

I was working, cleaning the steps at Toronto General Hospital,

and when he mentioned that to me,

I said, "Oh, my God! I got to try this stuff."

And I went out and whupped everybody's butts,

so, that was the making.

The club that Desai joined was the Scarborough Optimists,

coached by ex-sprinter, Charlie Francis.

He'd competed in the 1972 Olympic Games,

and watched in embarrassment in 1976 as Canada became the only nation

not to win a gold medal on home soil.

He felt that young black athletes had the greatest potential

to end Canada's medals drought.

Charlie, actually ended up being one of my best friends.

He was just an amazing human being. He would do anything for us.

I think he would even buy vitamins

for a lot of these guys

out of his own pocket.

Charlie, basically, would give you

the last shirt on his back.

The youngest and least promising of his recruits was Ben.

Desai Williams will undoubtedly be challenged in this final

by Ben Johnson.

I used to crush him, each and every single day.

Desai Williams appeared to be the winner.

And to see where he went in the span of a few years,

you know, was unheard of.

I just get every knowledge from him that he give to me.

I listened to what he says and just do it.

And some of the guys, all the guys said to me,

"Boy, I can imagine when you put this race together, you going to be awesome.

"You get out of those blocks so quickly, man. It's amazing."

He literally just jumped out of the blocks and started running.

That was just his thing.

And it was so effective that Charlie didn't change it.

Charlie was a part of me that was very close from since I was 14,

so we became very close as a son...and father, yeah.

People, they think, "Oh, he must've hated Ben."

I was like, no, no, I got it. I didn't have a problem with Ben.

It was a great story,

this guy from a small country,

doesn't speak well, he's really shy, and all of this,

and then the opposite side, this guy from the big, bad USA. I come in.

And I understood that the Canadians were like,

"I hate that Lewis. Kill him!"

You know, I got it. And I was like, "I love you too."

Give him a hand, ladies and gentlemen. Carl Lewis.

I always wanted to be a star in track.

When I came down to Houston, I really came here

to get a degree in Carl Lewis. You know.

'How about a big hand for our competitors in the girls' high jump.'

At the time, you know, track was not really making a lot of money,

you know, the attitude was

they had a chance to jump for the United States in the Olympic Games

and put on the USA uniform. That should be enough.

Well, for Carl, that wasn't enough.

I met with the coach Tellez and I'll never forget him.

My first meeting, I said

I want to be a millionaire, I never want a real job.

I said, "Don't worry about that, Carl. Don't worry about the money.

"Just do your job. That'll all take care of itself."

You know, let's go to work. We have a lot of work to do.

And I said, don't worry about anybody else in the race.

Just worry about what you're doing.

If they're ahead of you, don't worry.

Just keep accelerating

and accelerate through 60 to 70 metres in the race.

They'll come back to you at the end, I guarantee you.

He just came back at the last five metres and just went right past everybody.

A human being can run full speed ten yards.

You're spending 90 metres speeding up and slowing down.

They thought that if they got out faster,

they'd beat him at the end,

but they decelerate terribly at the end.

'Oh, magnificent Carl Lewis, magnificent.'

It got to the point where it wasn't even hard for him to beat people.

This is your first set, right? OK, go ahead.

Tom asked me if Carl could join the Santa Monica Track Club.

He said he will be perfect.

He'll do anything you tell him and he's a great talent.

Once I saw what he was like,

I did everything I could

to maximise the money that he made in track and field.

I have 16 of these books.

I can just open up arbitrarily.

Every time you see Carl, he's showing excitement,

and that was one of his high points.

Yes!

When I first met him, he was shy.

If we were talking and somebody else came into the room, he would leave.

He took acting class. He took speech class.

I get all types of letter, mostly just encouragement, people you want autographs,

and I try to send everyone back.

I had pen pals in every town.

"Dear Carl, you are my favourite track star."

People loved Carl.

I'd do store visits, all this staff.

-What was Lewis like off the track?

-A little bit cocky, you know.

Show off, but...that's the way Americans are.

'Less lucrative, but just as important is his music career.'

# I know that you know... #

Yes, he did some singing. In fact I have some of the CDs.

-What are they like?

-Very good.

# Let's all work together

# You can't win on your own, no... #

He can't sing.

# Make up your mind, join in while you still can

# Yeah... #

He's a runner. Stick to that.

I've frequently used the Michael Jackson analogy

and I hope he's worth as much as Michael Jackson.

Did I say that?

You know, I stick to my guns and my 100 metres and my event,

and that was all I ever dream of doing.

Just to run.

He just wasn't that good.

You know, I'm not trying to be mean,

but he was probably good for his country,

or whatever, but the reality, Ben was, kind of,

one of those guys we would not worry about,

because he didn't have the core talent.

But it wasn't just Lewis that Ben was trying to catch.

In 1979, the Canadians were invited

to a track and field dual meeting with East Germany...

East Germany win the World Championship.

..where they ran into Staatsplan 1425,

the East German's state-controlled doping policy.

Kept secret from the public,

it was becoming less of a secret among the athletics fraternity.

In that dual meet, I mean, I saw Marlies Gohr

and Marita Koch, and Marita ran 21.71

and broke the world record in the 200 metres.

'Medical student.'

And I remember Charlie saying,

you know, God, they were all on performance-enhancing drugs.

And I'm thinking, oh, my God,

if this is what my competitors are doing,

then I have to do this, too.

Sooner or later, your ability to succeed on natural talent runs out

when you run against a chemical barrier.

The question became, you know,

do you take drugs and try to win,

or do you content yourself

with losing for ever

by staying away from them?

That's where Charlie approached me and decided to do his own way.

I didn't tell my mother because if I told my mother, I wouldn't have done it. She wouldn't let me.

And I would never disappoint her,

so I think about it for about three weeks before I say yes.

I said, why should I train hard, doing it clean,

and then these other guys are not clean?

It was a dilemma every runner in the Seoul final

would have to confront at some point in their career.

I decided to not take it and lose.

Because, this is a matter of character, dignity.

I never took anything, but those guys, during the '80s,

they must have had something.

I just had to think about

how hard it was for me

to be in practice every day

and to run ten flat or ten point something,

and those guys ran it easily.

That's a question that I need the answer for.

Got to get up, baby! Upper leg, come on!

Keep working, baby!

Come on, man, keep going!

Whoo!

Did you contemplate that?

-Contemplating what?

-Taking.

-No.

No! I mean, there was no reason to.

Come on, guys.

'I never felt that I needed to do anything like that.'

So, it was "no".

I signed a charter,

coming into the sport,

and abide by the rules,

and I did abide by the rules.

I trained hard,

and for me, hard work and dedication pays off.

There's no shortcuts to it, whatsoever,

and I tell that to my athletes all the time.

The gossip is always there.

It never change.

I haven't done anything.

Nothing.

Because for all of my career running track and field,

nobody ever test me positive, for nothing.

Good job.

Was there never even a conversation

of should we look into going down that route?

-Of going down that road that Ben was taking?

-Are you kidding?

No, absolutely not!

I mean, what's the point in it? As a coach, I wouldn't want to do that.

You're not a coach any more!

You have no clue.

Most of the athletes choose not to take drugs.

Knees up! Knees up! Knees up!

You work every single day, five, six days a week,

you're going to beat yourself into the ground.

It's tough.

It's a sacrifice that every track person makes

with no guarantee. None.

I knew, with certain athletes, over a period of time,

how fast they had developed.

And you can see the body changes,

and that's when you know that something is not right.

Do you even suspect your own guys?

I'm not going to say I suspect them,

but I say 80%...

..of the athletes were on drugs during that time.

I look at it as an era of big-time drugs.

There were so many athletes on drugs.

You always think, oh, well, if I took drugs, I could do this,

but, that was about as far as it went with me.

This is one of those things I just didn't want to do.

I know that, without drugs, it was not that I could not beat them,

but it was going to be harder to beat them.

In 1983, the US Olympic Committee decided

to establish the facts for themselves.

They were staging the Games in Los Angeles the following summer,

and planning drugs testing on an unprecedented scale.

They did not want any embarrassments.

One of my first directives

was from Colonel F Don Miller,

who was the President of the Olympic Committee, who said,

"I don't want to see

"an American athlete

"positive in an Olympic Games.

"Let's see what we've got here.

"Do we have just a minor problem

"or do we have a huge problem?"

A lot of the testing was done by people who were very loyal to me.

Mainly, my family. I remember sending my wife to a competition,

and the next morning, Dr Catlin, who was the head of the UCLA laboratory,

where we sent our urines to be analysed,

would call me up and would say,

"Bob, we have 50 samples of urine, here, and they all look like water!"

That's where we found the drug diuretic

that the athletes were using that would thin the urine out,

so there was nothing but water and it would block our detection.

Dr Voy ran an educational testing programme for six months.

The purpose was to establish the extent of drug use

among American athletes.

No penalties were handed to those testing positive.

And they took full advantage of the amnesty.

Once I got into that programme,

I realised what the education was.

It was to allow the athletes

to figure out when they could take their drugs

and how long it would take

to clear the drugs from their body,

and I was just aiding and abetting them.

Well, we did have a problem.

What they needed to do to be successful, it's a very simple formula.

Win medals.

'What a stunning effect.'

No athlete was going for greater glory than Carl Lewis,

the first man since Jesse Owens

to attempt four track and field gold medals.

It was 11 races and two days of jumping.

And in my off day I was getting a haircut,

and the do had to be perfect because everything that I thought was...

I just wanted to be flawless.

I even went to the company and said I want new uniform for every day.

I don't have to wash it. I don't want it to fade.

'Lewis in seven. And we got a false start. It looked like Ben Johnson.'

Actually, in '84, I didn't even know who Ben Johnson was.

I wasn't worried about Ben Johnson. I was worried about Carl.

'From the start, Lewis in seven,

'Graddy off to a great start.

'Here comes Lewis. He wins it!

'Graddy is second. I think Ben Johnson got third.'

The next day's long jump...

..and then the next day is the 200.

'And as the gold, and it's a 1-2-3 American sweep

'in the 200 metres

'Carl is on his way to gold medal number four,

'Carl Lewis winning it by almost 15 metres.'

The heaviest testing was in the last couple of days.

That's when all the big championships were going on

and all the track and field finals.

And we were seeing positives coming all over the place.

Somehow or other, some of our results were lost.

Some number of cases just never saw the light of day.

And there is still a dispute today where they went.

Not only had results gone missing,

but there was now a new substance on the scene.

It wasn't detectable at all.

The 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games

acquired the reputation

as the growth hormone games.

There are athletes who have abused human growth hormone

and who have seen the jaw grow out.

Mature adult athletes wearing braces on their teeth

became stigmatum of growth hormone use.

I have no idea whether every case of braces

in 25- or 30-, 35-year-old person involves growth hormone.

In fact, I know it doesn't.

But we encounter the limits of what we can know.

The main supplier in North America was Robert Kerr,

a doctor based in Los Angeles.

That was the place to go to get what you need.

I flew down there and he had the pharmacy next door.

He was supplying tons and tons of athletes.

You'd be surprised who was going to see him to get growth hormone.

To acquire human growth hormone

before 1986, you have to go into a cadaver and extract it.

-Did that not, sort of, roll your eyes?

-No.

No, because, as I said, I, you know, if I'm going,

why wouldn't everybody else be going?

'Big surprise in that race was Ben Johnson from Canada,

'the Canadian National Champion, he got up to third place...'

This is all my medals over the years.

This is the '84 Olympic Games bronze in the 100 metres.

And the ribbon goes with it.

'There it is again in super slow-mo.'

I sit down in my basement in my house

and study that tape for almost an entire day.

'Carl Lewis, as you can see when he turns on the overdrive,

'it's all over.'

I got the speed, I got the blocks, but the strength wasn't there.

'Lewis, Graddy, and Johnson. Finishing 1-2-3.'

Johnson needed to increase his speed endurance

to compete with Lewis.

'Ben Johnson gets the bronze.'

So Charlie Francis introduced Jamie Astaphan to the camp -

a Toronto-based doctor already supplying steroids to other athletes.

We trusted him.

Here was a doctor who was willing to give you what you need.

You don't have to go on the black market to get it.

We go once a week and get injections.

Jamie said, oh, you know, he has this new drug called Estragol

and it was what the East Germans were taking.

As a young kid, you know, I was young in the business,

and he was a doctor and he says, if you don't take it, you won't make it.

The training is unbelievable on anabolic steroids.

You can lift your max twice a day while you're on the drugs,

where you would normally not be able to do it once but every three days.

You'll sit down in your house watching us run on TV,

you don't see the hard work.

We push the human body beyond the limits.

If I give you one of my workouts you'll understand what I'm talking about.

And it was painful. But I know that I need this.

Bigger muscles,

increasing strength, increasing speed.

Charlie would give me a test run to see if it's improving,

and to know if we're on schedule to beating Carl Lewis next year.

I wanted to be the fastest man in the world.

The drugs took 28 days to clear the body.

And with no out-of-competition testing,

avoiding a positive test

required little more than looking at a calendar.

Sufficiently prepared in 1985,

Ben embarked on the European outdoor season.

The people coming to watch, they want to be entertained,

they want to see a fast time, they don't care how you get there.

It was like a circus. Everybody move together. We go to Zurich.

And then from Zurich to Cologne, then from Cologne to London,

then from London to Rieti, from Rieti to Rome.

I spent a lot of time with Ben, Desai, you know,

guys who are your main rivals.

We just had a laugh.

The circuit is good. I missed that circuit.

The Americans called it

"the Olympics in one night".

The meet was always packed

with top athletes.

It was sort of like the championships outside the championships.

The atmosphere was second to none.

'Linford Christie.'

It was a small track. The crowd were just lovely.

They call out your name, you know, it was just a mad atmosphere.

And, of course, the big selling point was Carl.

We had the most money, you know, and like I say all the time,

Papa didn't work at the plant, so, you know,

he followed where the dollars were a lot of times.

Give me a number that you think's the most any athlete ever made in a meet

and I will tell you if it's true or false, that's all I will say.

Half a million dollars.

Not even close.

Of course, then, the promoters didn't want to pay the same amount

as they were paying Carl when they were on top.

A lot of guys resented that stuff, because all the other plebes

stayed together, we hung out together, we had fun together.

So, every time there's stuff on the track,

everybody wanted to beat the hell out of Carl.

'Calvin Smith got away well in the middle

'and Lewis is down a little bit at the moment.

'It's Ben Johnson at the moment. It's Ben Johnson on the near side.

'Johnson!

'It was Smith and Johnson.'

For the first time in nine races,

Carl Lewis had been beaten by Ben Johnson.

He had the speed endurance to finish.

I think that was Carl's biggest problem.

Because here comes a guy who would out-start you and you couldn't catch him.

'Lewis had a good start, so too did Ben Johnson.'

He was able to get under Carl Lewis's skin

by doing nothing more

than beating him on a regular basis.

'Johnson's going to win it, Lewis is nowhere.'

A lot of countries liked it.

The crowds would chant his name,

they would rush out of the stands to get him,

he was mobbed wherever he went.

And when Canadians saw that,

that really hit home that this guy is special.

He was also a bit of a charismatic chap for someone who was so quiet.

He was followed by armies of women.

He had this something and it was pretty impressive.

The thing about Ben Johnson winning,

it created a competition that the press wrote about.

It was the best rivalry, just like Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier.

That raises the value of both athletes.

Those are things that make sports.

Those are things that people love, that people remember and cherish.

It was perfect! Are you kidding me?

But as his losing streak stretched into 1987,

there were signs that Lewis was feeling the strain

of constantly coming second best.

We met in Spain, I beat him by close.

I ran 10.06 he ran 10.07,

but just going crazy like he won the race

and the meet was around him, and he just carry on.

You know what?

In Rome you won't be this close.

'All the teasing and taunting are over. This is it.

'This is where we find out who the world's fastest human is.'

I'm shaking your hand, saying good luck, with my heart,

and I'm saying, I'm going to kick your ass, with my eyes.

I won't look in nobody's eyes.

You go down, come to your mark, get in your blocks.

And you settle in.

And then I clear my mind.

And the time has come to show the world

who the best sprinter is.

That silence goes there, and then they say "set".

And I stay in that silence.

And then, bang.

COMMENTATOR: 'And it's a fair start.

'It's Ben Johnson who is out, and Ben Johnson is two metres,

'and Carl Lewis...and Ben Johnson's going to run away with it!

'Lewis cannot catch him!

'Ben Johnson of Canada!

'A 9.84!

'Unbelievable!

'You gotta love it!

'A world record! 'The wind is OK! Whoo!'

When I crossed the line in '87,

it was kind of like, "Whatever."

COMMENTATOR: 'And Carl Lewis went to congratulate Ben Johnson.'

It look like he was trying to congratulate me,

but he said to me, "You false started."

COMMENTATOR: 'Carl really showed class by doing this.'

And I said, "No." And just walked away.

LEWIS: 'This is ridiculous.

'In front of the whole world.

'We know the guy's doing drugs, he's big as a house.'

In the World Championship, he false starts, they don't call that back.

You've got to be kidding me! It's ridiculous!

JOHNSON: He always has some type of excuse,

why he can't admit that someone else has beaten him.

Whatever. I was so, "Whatever."

That word didn't even exist in our mind like we know now.

I didn't even know how to explain it, but I was just like, "Whatever."

INTERVIEWER: The good news is you got an American record out of it.

Well, hopefully, and the one thing we know is that we have the Olympics.

And that's my domain.

Johnson, a couple of weeks ago, you said that you thought

if you ran the perfect race, you can run 9.85.

-You just ran 9.83.

-Well, I'm pleased with my time.

I don't talk bullshit, though.

Whenever I know I'm running, I tell you if I'll win or not.

-ANNOUNCER: 'Ben Johnson!'

-CROWD ROARS

It doesn't matter if you're 19th place and on drugs,

because you're not affecting anything.

And so I felt I had to speak out.

And that's when I went to London, and I spoke out.

People are in competitions on drugs, and not getting caught.

And Charlie and the group dealt with it by saying,

"Well, we're using a vitamin B12 protocol.

"That's where the injections are."

Deny, deny, deny.

"Are you taking steroids?" "No, I'm not. I never did."

We know many athletes are on drugs, and there are many athletes

that are afraid to address the drug problem.

And that wasn't right. As a man.

Everyone says, "He says all these gold medallists in Rome were on drugs."

They were.

When he won four gold medals, I didn't say, "Lewis is using performance-enhancing..."

-INTERVIEWER: All of them?

-No, it's not all of them. That's not true.

If you look at pictures of Carl, and I have hundreds of them

right in my closet, you look at his eyes,

he is not taking drugs, and he has never taken drugs.

Ben Johnson.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

'Supporters lined the parade route.'

'If he was a star before Rome, it exploded after Rome.

'Then the contracts came out.'

You know, we'd never heard of Diadora. Suddenly,

-Diadora was everywhere.

-"Ben, this is what happens.

"This is how much they want to pay."

'He was hanging out with Prince Albert of Monte Carlo,'

and all kinds of celebrities.

ANNOUNCER: 'Toronto has declared this Ben Johnson Day.'

He was huge.

But as the offers rolled in,

it soon became clear that Ben's team was far from

the well-oiled machine operated by Joe Douglas.

'I remember being in Monte Carlo

'and a local TV crew went over to talk to him.'

And the cameraman from the Monte Carlo crew,

he reached into his pocket, pulls out a wad of bills,

and hands them to Charlie.

Then does the interview, and Charlie wanders over.

And I said, "Well, what happened there?"

And he said, "Well, you know, they have to pay

"if they want to have Ben."

And Charlie pulled out a roll of American bills in his pocket,

and a roll of American bills out of the other pocket.

He said, "I just hold Ben's money."

Desai Williams, who had left Charlie to coach himself in 1985,

decided to return after seeing Ben smash the world record.

'I'd seen things that were happening out there

'that were just unheard of.'

You know, being out there every single day, busting your butt.

You know, you see guys who never really accomplished anything

just start accelerating, and just going through the roof.

And it was just frustrating.

Desai returned to a camp riven with disharmony.

Ben's huge earning power brought with it arguments

between coach, Charlie Francis,

and Dr Jamie Astaphan,

about which one had contributed most to the sprinter's rise.

When I get the breakthrough, you know,

everybody was just overwhelmed with the success.

And no-one was prepared for it.

'Don't forget, the big payoff was going to be

'winning the 100m in Seoul.'

That was the high-stakes game.

Rome was the warm-up.

Seoul was the big one.

Everybody gets greedy, because everybody sees the money.

Just four months before the Olympics,

Johnson pulled a hamstring.

Francis wanted to oversee his recovery.

Instead, Ben decided to go to St Kitts,

where Astaphan was waiting for him.

I met Jamie.

He embraced me as his son.

I didn't have to train. I didn't have to do nothing.

Just eat nice roast fish on the beach,

and that was the best six weeks of my life, since I left Jamaica.

The best six weeks I ever had.

'Astaphan was the drug doctor.'

And Charlie wasn't sure what was going on,

and how that injury was being treated.

'Here's a guy that's going to the biggest race of his life,'

and you split with your coach at that given time.

Something is definitely wrong. You have no coach for a while.

Ridiculous!

'Within a few days,

'I started to receive different coloured pills and injections.'

I didn't ask anything. I took it, because I wanted to get myself healed.

The Olympic Games was about two months away.

And I said, "Now, it's time to go back to work."

I showed up at the track, and I said, "Hi, Charlie.

"Let's get the job done.

"We've come this far, were going to win a gold medal."

Four weeks before the Olympics,

Lewis and Johnson locked horns again in Zurich.

It had been three years since Lewis had last beaten the Canadian.

GERMAN COMMENTATOR: 'Johnson vorne...

'und jetzt kommt Lewis!

'Lewis kommt und Lewis gewinnt!

'Jawohl! In 9.94!'

'That is the race that sent Ben home saying, "Our programme's not working.

"We've got to step our programme up." And that was the race that did it.

'Lewis gewinnt in 9.94!'

I was the better athlete, and it scared him.

'That was not the case.'

I know I was going to lose.

And Charlie asked me, "You really want to run?"

And I said, "Yes. I want to know where I'm at."

I said, "I can fix things in six weeks for the Olympic Games."

ANNOUNCER: 'This laboratory across the river from the Olympic Village

'was built especially for these games.

'The testing facility is equipped with analytical instruments

'from the Hewlett-Packard Company of Palo Alto, California.'

On arrival in Seoul,

it was not the drug lab that caused the most concern for Ben.

It was the behaviour of Dr Astaphan.

'He'd seen that a lot of people were getting more recognition,'

and he just started talking about

he was going to go public with the information that...

that the camp be taking a lot of steroids, and stuff like that.

And I said, "If you need money, I've got money in my account.

"Just say so, and I can have the money transferred over."

COMMENTATOR: 'Christie's in 3, Da Silva in 4, Mitchell in 5,

-'Johnson in 6, Nunez in 7...'

-'I said, "When everything is finished,'

"I will get rid of everybody."

ANNOUNCER: 'I think Carl's running better now than he was last year.'

ANNOUNCER: 'That is Carl Lewis downstairs.

'We understand he is watching this on television. Is that right, Carl?'

JOHNSON: 'I put all burners on,

'and getting the body going for the final.'

ANNOUNCER: 'Oh, but he turns over!

'He really can move!'

'Ben was very bodacious in many ways.

'In Zurich, he had lost it,'

but when I got to Seoul, my boy was back.

I mean, he was back, big time.

'He was...he got to kick Carl's butt, you know?

'He was saying, "Oh, it kind of worries me.'

-"I'm gonna f..."

-HE LAUGHS

I said, "Man, just relax! Go out there and do what you've got to do."

'It's me against the world. And that's what it is.'

Dead man walking, you know?! Just one of those things!

Walking through that tunnel, you're going to the gallows!

Once you get out from the tunnel, it's just electric.

COMMENTATOR: 'Lane one, Da Silva of Brazil.

'10.24 in the semi-final.'

DA SILVA: For me, it was amazing to feel, "I'm part of this."

After that, I said,

"Man, I'm here. This is fun!"

'Lane two, Ray Stewart,

'the bronze medallist in the World Championship, from Jamaica.

'Lane three, the reigning Olympic champion, Carl Lewis.

'Carl Lewis, the fastest man in the world this year.'

My father passed away in May of '87.

And at the funeral, I took the 100m gold medal from 1984

and put it in his hand in his coffin.

And so he's holding it to this day. That's the one that I don't have.

My mother was standing there, and she was like, "That's your medal!

"Get that thing back!" and I said,

"Don't worry about it. I'll win it back next year."

So this is on my mind, going up to the starting line.

'Linford Christie, he goes in lane number four.'

CHRISTIE: Your heart is pumping away like crazy.

And all you're saying is,

"Dear God, don't let me die here on the track!"

'Lane five, the former world record holder,

'the world 200m champion, Calvin Smith.'

SECOND ANNOUNCER: 'In Lane six, number 159,

'the world champion and world record holder,

'Ben Johnson, Canada.'

Somebody said, "Let's go, America!"

-I said, "Really?"

-HE LAUGHS

'Lane seven, his Canadian team-mate,

'always running in Johnson's shadow, Desai Williams.

'At 29, the oldest of the finalists.

'And lane number eight, he mustn't be forgotten, Dennis Mitchell.'

'It was about Carl and Ben, and we all knew that.

'We were definitely the lane fillers.

'So we were just kind of hopeful that something would happen

'that would change our lives and little bit did we know,'

it was the race itself that would change our lives.

'And there must be between 90,000 and 100,000 people in the stadium.

'And in fact, competitors have jammed into the aisles

'to watch the race.'

'Carl was shaking his leg.

'He was looking out his side eyes.'

To see me.

'Lewis waiting as long as he can.'

'I let him run my race. I didn't run his race.'

'Who's going to be the last to settle?

'Johnson's not going to fall for this.'

'There should be no tension. Everything should be fluid,'

because a fast muscle is a long, relaxed muscle.

JOHNSON: 'Set myself up nicely.'

-'They've settled.'

-'Relaxed.'

I'm listening for the gun.

Then, boom!

Catch me if you can.

I tell you, the gun goes off,

and I've never experienced this before in my life.

'They go first time, Johnson got a brilliant start!'

I see an entire body fly in front of us. I thought it was a false start.

'It's Johnson away and clear.'

He moved, and I tried to go with him.

I'm the last one to get off the blocks,

because I thought about my entire life until that moment.

I got to 30 metres,

and started to climb, and...

it's not going to take me another 10 .

Forget it.

I start to be a spectator of that race.

But at about 50 metres, I kind of woke up,

and said, "You've got to run too.

"You need a medal just as much as he does."

I blew my wad from 60 to say, 70, 75 metres.

It was just a bundle of tight, short muscles.

Personally I'd been planning, he's going to die at 60,

and we can come back.

But he got to 60, and then he just kicked again.

You know, and that was it!

COMMENTATOR: 'He let's them go first time.

'And Ben Johnson got a brilliant start!

'Johnson away and clear. And Lewis is not going to catch him.

'Johnson wins it. Lewis, second. Christie, third.'

The job has been done.

When I crossed the line, I said, "Gee, that was fast!"

COMMENTATOR: 'Unbelievable! 9.79!'

'Desai Williams celebrating...'

To tell you the truth,

I don't think even Ben knew how fast he ran.

I didn't know where I was.

I know that the crowd was just roaring and yelling and screaming.

When we crossed that finish line,

I just kind of thought to myself, "I did it."

I didn't care what place I got.

The whole world is looking at you, and it feels so great.

Just being a part of such an incredible, hyped-up race.

INTERVIEWER: How did you see the race, Carl?

Well, I pressed well out of the blocks, Dave...

I don't remember that race at all. Just, nothing.

And I think, subconsciously, I don't want to remember it. I put it away.

Carl was totally devastated.

He had that look in his eyes that is not a joy to look at.

Carl was looking across at Ben, and everything else,

and he ran out of his lane so many times.

I mean, two or three times.

I remember crossing the line, and then saying, "Dad,

"I can't believe I let you down."

COMMENTATOR: 'And Johnson's answered everybody!'

So then, I remember him doing his celebration,

and I went to congratulate him. Because I knew everyone was watching.

And I'll never forget it, he pulled away.

You m... f..., you know?!

You're going to play that game to me?!

And I actually made him shake my hand.

'And Mrs Lewis is the first to applaud.'

And she knew Ben was cheating, but she had to sit there

with that NBC camera on her face.

JOHNSON: It's not about drugs. I was running for my mother.

This is about, you see your mother working hard,

and trying to make ends meet.

And you're training to be the best you can.

That gives you the drive and the fear not to fail.

And, um, I love my mother.

A lot.

CHEERING

'I felt like it was my son coming across the line.'

I just grabbed at him and I had my bodyguards, and so we just literally

left the stadium under the ground, and started climbing the stairs.

And, of course, holding onto Ben.

'It was pretty exciting, and then we had to have an interview with CBC'

at the top of the stadium, with the prime minister.

-'Ben, can you hear me?'

-Sure, yeah.

'My congratulations to you on behalf of all Canadians.

'You were just marvellous and all of us are so proud.'

'It's one of those moments where everyone remembered where they were when he won.

'It was really a galvanising moment for this country,'

and everyone was really, really proud of him.

'When we did go down to get the medal,'

I took off his wet shirt, fixed his gold necklace.

'I was certainly Mother of Ben that day.'

"Good going, Ben. You go out and get that medal."

COMMENTATOR: 'And now, Ben Johnson steps forward.'

APPLAUSE

'What's more valuable - a world record or the gold medal?'

-The gold medal.

-Why?

Because it's something nobody can take away from you.

POLICE SIRENS

I was sleeping.

I discovered it...

Was I still at the village?

-POLICE SIRENS

-You know when I find out?

I think I was still at the village when I heard that.

I think I was awakened during the night.

Four o'clock in the morning.

I was in the condo. My brother called me...

My phone rings...

You got to be kidding me.

I couldn't believe it.

Hey, man, things happen.

HE LAUGHS

David Diaz is standing by at the Shilla Hotel with a report.

Let's go to David.

OK, and here you see it - this is the Korean daily newspaper, Hankook Ilbo.

Here is the headline. It says, "Johnson doping test."

Charlie knocked on my door...

The test's positive.

And I said, "Well, they finally got me."

How could this happen?

He shouldn't have been on drugs at the Olympics.

I went to tell my mother and everyone.

That was when the buzz started, the whole place wakes up.

All hell broke loose.

And we ran out of the media village,

trying to get a cab in the middle of the night, and we all knew

we were going to the same place. We were going to Ben's hotel.

And we all raced over there, and by then, he was gone.

REPORTER: 'The media got up early for this one, and why not?

'They were looking at the biggest drugs story in Olympic history.'

The Games literally stopped.

'You're looking at the scene at the main press centre where the IOC...'

'We were beginning to know in the real world about drugs in sport,

'but they were always weightlifters'

and all these events that people really didn't care about.

This was track and field, this was the 100m,

Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson, and there was no way

that this could be anything other than a game-stopper.

The urine sample of Ben Johnson was found to contain the metabolites

of a banned substance, namely, stanozolol.

It's an anabolic steroid.

I kind of had empathy for Ben and what he was going through,

because he went from a megastar to disaster in a matter of days.

-How are you, Mr Johnson?

-MAN SHOUTS: Canada wants to know why!

Did you feel any empathy or sympathy for what Ben went through?

No, I don't.

-VOICES CLAMOUR

-Yes, he took it!

'This great humiliation kicked in,'

very closely after this whole nation was riding on this emotional high.

I used to think he was really great,

but now I found out he took steroids, I don't like him very much.

He'd lied to us, Charlie had lied to us, they'd all lied to us.

I've never, ever knowingly taken illegal drugs.

Bloody hell, come on.

And I would never embarrass... my family...

my friends, and my country.

Johnson's denials implied that Charlie Francis had doped him without consent.

The Canadian government commissioned Charles Dubin to get to the truth.

-REPORTER:

-'..a steroid called dianabol, eight years ago.'

Did Ben Johnson understand that dianabol was...

'Two of the people that we interviewed first were the coach,'

Charlie Francis, and Angella Issajenko.

When an athlete gets caught, you deny, you deny, you deny.

From that, of course, we got a wealth of information,

because they decided to break the conspiracy of silence.

When someone who has been very good to you, someone has done you, um...

..a good turn, that has been responsible...

..for making you great, then...

..you shouldn't turn against people like that.

'I did this whole thing and told the truth just to save Charlie,'

because Charlie meant that much to me. And there was no way that he was going to be blamed for all this.

Mixture of...

growth hormone and aqueous testosterone.

Nobody was forced to take anything, Charlie didn't put a gun to your head and say, "You know what, guys?

"You have to do this or else I'm not coaching you." He never said that.

Did he understand that anabolic steroids were banned at the time?

Yes.

Is what Charlie's saying true?

But it was Dr Astaphan's testimony that proved decisive.

The axiom amongst track and field, plus other athletes, was,

"If you don't take it, you won't make it."

He revealed that he had taped telephone calls with Ben,

discussing his steroid use.

TAPE PLAYS: 'You haven't used any of the white stuff, the steroids, since December, have you?'

'Uh, part of it, yeah.'

-'You have more left in the bottle?'

-'Yes.'

What was the purpose of making these telephone calls, then?

So that when - excuse my expression - the shit hit the fan, my tail would be covered too.

Ben had no choice but to admit to everything.

'I looked at my mother in the stands,'

and I said to my mother, "Mum, what do you think?"

Mum said, "Son, tell the truth...

"..and everything will be OK."

-You made a decision to go on steroids.

-Yes.

Some Winstrol tablets contained a little white phial.

Did you know they were banned?

Uh, in certain ways, yes.

The inquiry was far reaching.

It included an appearance by Dr Robert Kerr -

infamous for supplying growth hormone.

REPORTER: 'Kerr told the Dubin Inquiry today that at least 20 medal winners

'at the 1984 Los Angeles Games used steroids to win.

'And he should know - he says he gave them the drugs.'

'I'm glad that the Dubin Inquiry took place.'

It opened up a lot of individuals' eyes

in terms of what goes on out there. You know?

Not just Ben. You know, it's there. Other athletes have done it, right?

So what? You know, they continue to still do it, so...

-REPORTER:

-'As he left...'

-The Dubin Inquiry was the first and only time

that leading figures in international athletics were sworn under oath

-to describe their drug-taking.

-'..South Carolina 11 years ago.'

Their reward for such honesty?

To be banned by both national and international athletics federations,

thus providing a significant disincentive for any other nation to follow suit.

We all lost our records, you know. All the Canadian records we set.

Huge price to pay for it.

Sometimes, you look back and everything else,

and as my dad says, "You had to be stupid."

My best decision was leaving,

my worst decision was coming back in the fall of '87.

I should never have came back.

I should've just kept going for it.

Cos I had a decent track career.

-VIA LOUDSPEAKER:

-Hello, everybody!

-ALL: Hello!

'One of Britain's greatest sportsmen, the sprinter Linford Christie,'

has been suspended from athletics on suspicion of taking drugs.

I think they banned me for two years for something I totally, totally did not do.

'Linford Christie tested positive for the anabolic drug, nandrolone, which helps pack on muscle bulk.'

Does it matter to you, then,

that people still harp on about...?

Don't give a shit. You know, I don't...

Yeah, I can honestly look you in your eyes, and I don't give a shit.

-How many medals do you have?

-I mean, I've won everything there is to win in our sport.

Enemies never believe you, friends don't need explanation.

'What they need to look at is,

'"What have I done since?" Yeah, move on.'

If I can move on, get a life, you know. Move on, you know,

be in it for the sport, to make the sport a better place.

Let's go!

'Sprinter Dennis Mitchell is also suspended'

after he was shown to have too much testosterone in his system.

KLAXON SOUNDS Come on, guys, let's go! Pick it up, pick it up!

'We're all vulnerable to make mistakes.'

There was a period in my life... I made a coaching change.

Probably was the worst decision I made in my life.

Made a couple of bad decisions.

And I was judged for it, and that's it.

What were the accusations they were accusing you of?

Er...one of them...

..trafficking drugs.

There you go. Kick.

In 2010, Ray Stewart was embroiled in an investigation

into the sale and distribution of drugs among elite athletes.

Nobody come forward and say, "Hey, Ray, give me this, give me that."

Their argument was the wire transfers between the bank accounts.

That wire transfer, I was playing soccer.

I showed them. B12.

How do you deal with it, though?

You're kind of tainted now, in people's eyes.

People who watch track and field know track and field,

know that all that crap they're talking about doesn't happen.

You know, it's just people don't understand it.

Recently discovered documents show Carl Lewis and other US athletes

were allowed to compete in the 1988 Olympics after failing drug tests.

At the 1988 US Olympic trials,

Carl Lewis tested positive for three banned stimulants.

This was not made public, because he successfully argued

the result was caused by a Chinese herbal remedy.

If found guilty, he would have missed the Seoul Olympics.

Today, those results would not trigger a positive test.

Who wants to make the story?

If you go back and read, or know now,

and you know that particular product was taken off the list,

then, you know, "OK, I get it," it does make sense why they did it.

Boom, it's over.

But if you want to be.... Then you're going to say it, you know.

I was moved up from fourth place to third place, for the bronze medal.

I eventually got this medal under the stands at the Olympic Stadium.

The Olympic Committee didn't do what they should have done.

I feel they should have had another ceremony.

I didn't lose, actually.

I lost maybe 1 million or 2 million.

Yeah, I have to admit that.

But, um...

I sleep very nice, every night.

As the years went on,

and our methods were getting better and better and better.

I was curious, you know. How many things did we miss in '84?

And I had, for whatever reason, kept them all in the refrigerator.

I took 100 or 200, some number like that,

and tested them, according to our modern methods.

We could see drugs, and we did see more than we saw in '84.

and then I start, "Hm, better not to do this."

You know, we're seeing too much.

What am I going to do with it?

Are we going to publish it?

Finally, I decided there were too many issues.

But that's the history of testing.

You just get better and better and better,

and things that you couldn't test for yesterday, today are simple.

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