Should Ben Johnson be given back Olympic medal?

satchmosatchmo
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Not sure if this is even a possibility or considered but with now more proof that others including Carl Lewis were taking banned substances, should Ben Johnson be given back the gold medal?



While being admittedly pro-Canadian, I don't think he should. It's a dirty sport. The rules may be different today. But unfortunately back then, everyone played by the same rules. Johnson and his handlers just didn't play it well enough and got caught.



http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/...BNStory/Sports

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    scottscott Posts: 7,431member
    You can't go back and right all wrongs. I assume these guys were tested at the Olympics as well? I guess they came back negative?
  • Reply 2 of 5
    stunnedstunned Posts: 1,096member
    No. That would just be rewarding bad behaviour.
  • Reply 3 of 5
    midwintermidwinter Posts: 10,060member
    Ben Jonson was a really good writer, but I don't think he deserved the medal.



    Cheers

    Scott
  • Reply 4 of 5
    matsumatsu Posts: 6,558member
    It's better to be a bad writer than a bad critic! (sorry I forget the couplet)



    Anyway, there's a saying in auto racing about cheating and getting caught, basically, it isn't unless you are: the rules are there to be interpreted.



    If we extend that premise to sprinting, then he probably shouldn't, part of the sport involves being able to NOT get caught. However, when the bureaucracy so heavily favors one side, and probably caught them, but let it slide because there was as of yet no media leak, then the bureacrats deserve a little more attention. It wasn't a case of Ben being caught and the other's not, there is very good evidence that it was actually a case of Ben being singled out.



    However, having seen plenty of the evidence in person from the mouth of charlie francis himself, I know that Sprinting is one of those sports where "natural" became synonomous with "also-ran" oh, 15-25 years ago.



    Nobody likes to talk about it, but nobody in a world sprint final after 1980, and certainly no one on the podium, was/is running clean, and anyone who thinks Maurice Greene's 9.79 is more natural than Ben Johnson's is dellusional. There are limits to what the human body will do, and we passed them some time ago. Are they taking strictly banned substances at race time? No, but programs exist and are carefully tailored. Most athletes even know when they have to piss. Drug testing is a charade. People want to see records fall, but in quiet a few sports that has become an unrealistic proposition for the performance of even the most perfect human bodies.



    The single most disgraceful act of the 1988 Olympics wasn't Johnson's doping, but the pathetic way in which the Canadian Athletics association and press hung Johnson out to dry. I just don't see the US or USSR of that time failing their own athletes in that way. In Canada it became really popular to bash Johnson, but we owe him an apology, we sold him out even when we knew what was really going on. Then again, Canadian sport-o-crats have been trying to climb the ranks of the IOC for years, so why not betray a guy along the way.



    I still love ya Ben, whether you took those stereos or not. (Can't conclude without a fast black Jamaican joke now, can I?)
  • Reply 5 of 5
    powerdocpowerdoc Posts: 8,123member
    yes Matsu is right, he don't deserve the medal because he was caught, however he did not deserved all this bashing in a sport where doping was common.

    Making him a scapegoat, in order to save the apparence of a sport was damn hypocritical.
Sign In or Register to comment.