Ben Johnson, A Life of Regret: The most controversial athlete of all time
Ben Johnson, the Jamaican born Canadian sprinter was supposed to become the next big thing in the world of athletics. He made a fantastic debut, took the world by storm, developed a great rivalry with Carl Lewis and then was embroiled so deeply in a doping
scandal that he fell from grace like no other athlete before him. After attempting numerous comebacks, all of which failed, he is now living a life full of regret and sadness. His story showed the world that cheaters never prosper in sports. This interesting
man’s life story is not over yet as he releases a tell all book very soon.
Johnson was born in Jamaica and immigrated with his mother to Canada in 1976. Once in Canada, he started to develop an interest in running and since he proved to be very quick early on, he was picked up by his long time coach, Charlie Francis. Over time
the two of them developed a strong bond and Francis became a father figure in the young sprinter’s life. Under his coach’s strict training programme, Johnson put on some serious muscle mass and became very fit in the process. Johnson’s first of many successes
came during the 1982 Commonwealth Games, held in Brisbane Australia.
Johnson’s great rivalry with sprinter Carl Lewis began in 1984 at the Los Angeles Olympics. Lewis beat the Canadian on that occasion with Johnson coming in third but the race was now on. By the end of the 1984 running season, Johnson had firmly proved that
he was Canada’s top sprinter and all that he needed to do was take over the world. In 1985, the Canadian finally managed to beat Lewis during the World Indoor Championships in Paris. He would soon take over the top spot in the sport in the next year as he
won three gold medals in 1986, the first in the 100 metres race during the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games and at the same Games he also managed to win the 4x100 metres relay. He also brought home the gold medal at the 1986 Goodwill Games that same year in Moscow.
Another great year followed for the sprinter in 1987 but it was during the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea that it all started to go wrong for Johnson. The events that took place during that year at the Olympics would forever change Johnson’s life and
would brand him a cheat from then on. During the 100m race, he broke the world record at the time with a blistering time of 9.79 seconds to clinch the gold medal. The Canadian press went crazy; they labelled the man a genius and an honour for Canada. Then
it all started to go wrong for the sprinter.
A doping test after the race found traces of Stanozolol, a steroid, in Johnson’s urine sample and he was subsequently stripped of his gold medal. He went on to admit using steroids during the 1987 season and he was stripped of the gold he won that year as
well. This led to the greatest and most well known fall from grace in sports history. He was slammed in the same newspapers that had three days earlier been singing his praise and his image was forever tarnished. Some sources labelled him the biggest cheater
in the history of sports.
He tried to make several comebacks in his career most notably in 1993 when he ran again in Montreal, Canada. But once again he was found to be cheating when excessive amounts of testosterone were found in his bloodstream. In 1999, he tried again but for
a third time he was found to have used an illegal drug and was banned for life. He then, bizarrely, went to Libya the same year, to coach President Muammar al-Gaddafi’s son Al-Saadi Qadhafi to train him to become a footballer. The most ironic part of this
was that the Libyan leader’s son went to Italy, joined a club and was banned after playing one game for failing a drugs test.
It seems Johnson never learnt his lesson during his life; he claims it was his former coach Francis who introduced him to drugs and they ended up ruining his life. What is interesting is that he maintains till this day that someone spiked his drink at the
Olympic Games in Seoul and forced the drugs into his system. How accurate this is, is up to debate because he is a known cheater and he is trying to claim that someone else drugged him.
Hopefully now, the disgraced former sprinter has found some peace in his life and will try a different path to earn a living. It is heard that he is coaching these days and we should all pray and hope that those he coaches do not turn out like him.
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