(August, 2004) Top 10 Most Controversial Olympic Moments
3. 1988: Ben Johnson
Yeah, you knew I was going to get around to the doping sooner or later. And you know what: it's really not as big a deal as everyone makes it out to be. But if that's the way they want to have their Games, then let them. The truth is Ben Johnson was not the first high-profiled Olympian to juice himself up. He was just the one to get caught.
Drugs or no drugs, he still ran the fastest. Verifiable proof that winners do use drugs.
Florence Griffith Joyner, his American female counterpart, showed up to Seoul with a transformed upper body and husky voice. She then blasted records in the 100m and 200m with times that are still untouchable today. She retired a year later. She died in 1998 of an epileptic seizure. Nope, no drugs there.
Six years after retirement, documents released showed Carl Lewis (y'know, the guy who finished behind Ben Johnson.....waaaay behind Ben Johnson) had tested positive for three stimulants during the 1988 Olympic trials. A initial suspension of six months, which would have resulted in Lewis missing the Games, was overturned on appeal. Neither the positive nor the reprieve was made public.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, documents released from Germany confirmed what the rest of the world had suspected for years: East Germany had engaged in a massive doping program in the 70s and 80s, involving some thousands of athletes. And then, almost by comedic circumstance, thereafter the Chinese swim program hired all the East German coaches and trainers. The next Olympics, they won like a bazillion more medals. And then Chinese athletes started failing doping tests in droves, as new technologies arose to catch sneakier substances. Nope, no drugs there. None at all.
It does put a damper on things though. I remember reading a story awhile ago about this one middle distance runner who managed to shave 24 seconds off their time in one year. That kind of rapid improvement raises eyebrows, and now the common assumption is that meteoric rises in performance, while possible, are disingenuous. But what if you're just that good? You have IOC officials looking over your shoulder and shoving pee cups in your hands at every corner just for doing your best? With that amount of scrutiny, is it really worth it? When you think about it....we've pretty much hit the wall on some of those records. The 100m is not going to get much faster than maybe half a second more, and then that's it. That's the limit of human capability. It's certainly not possible to do the thing in 1 second, or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or even 6, so somewhere between 6 and 10 seconds is the event horizon for human speed. Unless an athlete comes along and does something really insane, like unplugs himself from the Matrix or something. Dan, is that you?
