track and field athlete
Personal Information
Full name, Benjamin Sinclair Johnson, Jr.; born December 30, 1961, in Falmouth, Jamaica; son of Ben (a telephone repairman) and Gloria (a cook and waitress) Johnson.
Education: Graduated from Yorkdale High, Ontario, Canada; attended Centennial College, Ontario.
Career
Sprinter and relay runner, 1977-88 and 1990--. Appeared in the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, 1984, earned two bronze medals, for 100 meter race and 400 meter relay; earned four indoor world records, 1987, including a 9.83-second finish in the 100 meter in Rome; appeared in the Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, 1988, earned gold medal, for 100-meter run, stripped of medal and banned from Olympic competition for two years after urine test revealed steroid use. Reinstated to Olympic eligibility, 1990.
Life's Work
Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson has entered the 1990s determined to rescue his tarnished reputation. For most of the 1980s Johnson was among the most famous and best-loved athletes in Canada and his long-standing feud with American runner Carl Lewis earned him great attention in the United States as well. Once an Olympic gold medalist and the fastest man on earth, Johnson was stripped of his honors for using anabolic steroids to enhance his performance. His downfall at the 1988 Olympic games--and his subsequent confession to years of steroid use--came as a blow to track fans worldwide. Maclean's contributor Bob Levin wrote: "[Johnson] was a rocket, a role model, a national hero.... To Canadians, he was never Johnson, just Ben.... But when the steroid scandal burst upon the world, ... Canadians, who had risen as one to applaud Johnson's triumph, doubled over in sickened disbelief, taking Johnson's humiliation as their own. Children wept openly. Many people clutched at faint hopes of some innocent explanation. Others branded Ben a betrayer, a cheat."
Johnson served a two-year suspension imposed by the International Amateur Athletic Federation and was re-instated for competition in September of 1990. Having spent his days of suspension crusading against drug use in Canada's schools and amateur athletic clubs, the young runner was able to regain some of the respect he had lost. The rest of that respect he hopes to earn back on the track. Washington Post correspondent Christine Brennan noted that the citizens of Canada "were embarrassed by [Johnson]; now they love him. Johnson is Canada's prodigal son." Brennan quoted Toronto Sun columnist Jim O'Leary, who called the runner "a risk taker" and "a high-wire act in a nation of couch potatoes. [Canadians] admire his flair, applaud his success and now seem determined to cushion his fall with a net of public sympathy."
Ben Johnson, Jr., was born in Falmouth, Jamaica, on December 30, 1961. Falmouth, a formerly prosperous seaport that has fallen upon hard times, is about 17 miles east of Montego Bay. The Johnson family was reasonably successful, with a pleasant home and a large yard. Ben, Sr., had a regular job repairing telephones for the Jamaica Telephone Company; he also raised chickens, ducks, cows, pigs, vegetables, and bees. The fifth of six children, Ben, Jr., grew up outdoors, running and swimming in the nearby ocean at every opportunity. "We'd take off all our clothes and swim naked all day," Johnson told Maclean's. "We couldn't get our clothes all wet up or everyone would know what we'd been doing. Even in dry clothes, my parents could tell if I'd been swimming, because they could see the sea salt drying white against my black skin and I would get a beating."
Johnson's mother told Maclean's that her son would never walk when he could run. "I would turn my head for a moment, and he would be far in the distance." Johnson's childhood heroes included famous sprinters Donald Quarrie of Jamaica and Hasely Crawford of Trinidad, but his most immediate inspiration was his older brother, Edward. While Johnson was still quite young his brother earned a spot with the Conquerors track club. Soon the youngster was tagging along to meets and earning small change in informal street races. In school Johnson was an average student who was bothered by a speech impediment; his teachers remembered him as shy and withdrawn.
In 1972 Johnson's mother decided that her children needed a better education than rural Falmouth afforded them. She had a friend who had emigrated to Toronto, so she boarded a plane and went to look for work in Canada. Eventually she got a full-time job as a cook and moved Johnson and three of his siblings into a two-bedroom flat in suburban Toronto. "I went because Mom went," Johnson told Sports Illustrated of his move north. "I didn't really know where I was going." For a short time Ben, Sr., joined the family, but eventually returned to his job with the Jamaican telephone company. Father and son remained on good terms, however, visiting on holidays and communicating by phone.
The transition to Canada's schools proved difficult for Johnson. His Jamaican accent and stutter led to placement in remedial classes. "I didn't like to go to school," Johnson confessed in Sports Illustrated. He did manage to graduate from Yorkdale High, though his reading and mathematics skills were judged to be very basic. Johnson's interests decidedly lay elsewhere. In 1977 he accompanied Edward to the Scarborough (now Mazda) Optimist Track Club, where both brothers began to train with coach Charles Francis. Francis himself had been an Olympic sprinter for Canada in the early 1970s. He was hardly impressed by the lanky young Johnson. The coach told Maclean's: "He was small for his age and so skinny that I thought he was 12, not 14."
When he arrived at the Scarborough Optimist Track Club Johnson could hardly run a lap around the track without collapsing from exhaustion. But after six months of Francis's coaching the youth gained 43 pounds and six inches of height--and became a formidable runner as well. In 1978 Johnson placed fourth in the 50 meter dash at the National Indoor Track and Field Championships in Montreal. Only two years later he ran a close second in the one hundred meter event in the Canadian men's championships. By then Coach Francis was truly excited about his young prospect and the two became fast friends.
In 1980 Johnson encountered superstar Carl Lewis for the first time when both competed in the Pan-American junior championships in Sudbury, Ontario. Lewis easily outdistanced Johnson on that occasion, as he often would over the next four years. The defeat--and Lewis's affable, easygoing manner--galled Johnson, who became determined to run faster than his confident rival. Francis counseled patience and Johnson worked methodically to improve his times and build his upper body strength. "Ben never has to learn anything new," Francis told Sports Illustrated. "He can perfect every exercise.... The core sprint exercises--the hips, the upper legs, the arms--are where he goes high." At 15 Johnson weighed only ninety-three pounds; seven years later he was a 175-pound marvel who could bench press 335 pounds. He was still unable to defeat Lewis, however, who took four gold medals in the 1984 Olympics. The 1984 Games proved quite disappointing for Johnson; he was forced to settle for two bronze medals while the public fawned over Lewis.
The feud between Johnson and Lewis grew ever more heated as the two runners exchanged barbs through the press, each predicting the other's defeat and disgrace. In 1985 Johnson finally proved that he could beat Lewis when he won the World Championships in Canberra, Australia. During most of the following two years Johnson absolutely dominated in world track events. He won the one hundred meter race at Moscow's 1986 Goodwill Games in record-breaking fashion with a 9.95-second time. The following year he was undisputed champion with four indoor world records and an absolutely stunning 9.83-second finish in the outdoor World Championships in Rome. The dazzling victory in Rome, where Johnson finished a full meter ahead of Lewis, left no room for doubt: Ben Johnson was proclaimed the fastest man on earth and was hailed as Canada's finest athlete.
Even then Carl Lewis suggested--in a roundabout way--that Johnson was using performance-enhancing drugs. Johnson and his trainers countered that he had passed any number of urine tests after his meets. Indeed, a test run just after the Rome race yielded negative results, leaving most observers certain that Lewis's charges were merely a matter of sour grapes. Johnson did face other problems as he reached the height of his profession, however. A hamstring injury sidelined him and he quarreled with Francis over treatment methods. His schedule became clogged with product endorsements and time-consuming business deals and the press questioned his amateur status as he spent lavishly on homes, sportscars, and art objects. Reflecting on his year in the limelight, Johnson told Maclean's: "I didn't know what it was going to be like. Now I'm successful, and I'm paying for it."
Johnson entered the 1988 Olympics in Seoul as a heavy favorite for victory in the prestigious one hundred meter dash. As predicted, he won the event, shattering his own record in the process. Even the most jaded running enthusiasts expressed amazement at Johnson's time of 9.79 seconds. The reason for his performance soon became evident, when traces of the drug stanozolol--a banned anabolic steroid--were found in his urine during a post-race test. In the worst scandal in Olympic history, Johnson was stripped of his medal--it went to Lewis, who finished second--and suspended from competition. For some time following the discovery Johnson denied any wrongdoing. Only after Francis testified to Johnson's steroid use in court did the runner finally admit that he had been taking drugs since 1981.
The scandal held wide implications for amateur athletes throughout Canada, but the burden undoubtedly fell hardest on Johnson. Officials debated rescinding his 1987 win in Rome and a veritable fortune of product endorsement contracts were canceled or allowed to expire. Johnson faced tough times financially and personally, but through the long two-year suspension resolved to make a comeback and prove that he could win without the help of drugs. "Whatever I lost doesn't mean a thing," he told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "My health is the most important thing. If I had kept taking [steroids], I could have had side effects with my liver."
Johnson's reinstatement to Olympic competition in 1990 was accompanied by a reinstatement from the Canadian government for appearances as a representative of the nation. Johnson hired a new coach, Loren Seagrave, and returned to work, visibly smaller and thinner than he had been in 1988. Although he turned 30 in December of 1991, Johnson predicted that he would make his way to the 1992 Olympics as a champion sprinter. Today his races are run in memory of his father, who died of a heart attack in 1989. Johnson still harbors a grudge for Carl Lewis and lists defeating the American as his number one priority. Still, the former star admits that he has a great deal to prove, both to himself and to the people of his adopted country. "People won't forget," he told the Chicago Tribune, "but they're going to say, `Great. After his downfall, the guy took care of his problems and won again.' That will be the biggest thrill of my life."
Further Reading
Sources
- Chicago Tribune, November 20, 1990.
- Maclean's, August 8, 1988; September 12, 1988; October 10, 1988.
- New York Times, November 19, 1990.
- Philadelphia Inquirer, January 13, 1991.
- Sports Illustrated, November 30, 1987.
- Washington Post, June 17, 1989; January 10, 1990; January 13, 1991.
