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Lewis challenges Johnson to do the right thing

Broadcast Date: Jan. 14, 1989

"Ben Johnson has an obligation to the young people of our world to tell them that what he did was wrong," U.S. sprinter Carl Lewis tells The Inside Track. He doesn't buy the idea that athletes could be fed steroids by coaches and doctors without knowing it, and says he felt pretty sure as far back as 1987 that Johnson was taking drugs. Now, he's hoping that the scandal at the 1988 Seoul Olympics will help track and field leave doping behind.

Lewis challenges Johnson to do the right thing

• Carl Lewis of the United States was the man to beat for many years, especially when Ben Johnson was coming up through the ranks. After Johnson was disqualified from the 1988 Olympic Games and stripped of his gold medal, Lewis was awarded the gold medal in the 100-metre sprint. It is one of nine Olympic gold medals Lewis won during his decade-long career as a sprinter and long-jumper. Despite the impression left in this interview, he did not testify at the Dubin Inquiry.

• Lewis is widely considered one the greatest track and field stars in U.S. history. In 1984 he matched legendary U.S. track star Jesse Owens's feat of winning four gold medals at one Olympic Games. His last Olympic gold medal came in long jump at the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta. Lewis also won eight gold medals in World Championship track and field competitions, and twice broke the world record in the 100-metre sprint. He retired from competition in 1997.

• Ben Johnson won (and kept) two other Olympic medals during his career, both bronze, at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Carl Lewis won the gold in both of those races. Although Johnson beat Lewis several times between 1985 and 1987, his world record and World Championship win in Rome in 1987 were stripped two years later when Johnson admitted under oath at the Dubin Inquiry that he'd taken performance enhancing drugs.

• The Dubin Inquiry opened the week this episode of The Inside Track aired. It was established by the federal government in the wake of Ben Johnson's positive steroid test at the 1988 Olympic Games. Conducted by Ontario Appeal Court Chief Justice Charles Dubin, the Commission of Inquiry Into the Use of Drugs and Banned Practices Intended to Increase Athletic Performance heard 91 days of testimony from 122 witnesses, including athletes, coaches, doctors, government officials and International Olympic Committee representatives.

• The report of the Dubin Inquiry, released in June 1990, resulted in a much strengthened drug-testing program in Canada, including the creation of the independent non-profit Canadian Anti-Doping Organization in 1991.

• For more on Ben Johnson, please see the CBC Digital Archives topic Running Off Track: The Ben Johnson Story. For more on drug use in Canadian sport, please see the CBC Digital Archives topic Going for Dope: Canada and Drugs in Sport .

Lewis challenges Johnson to do the right thing

Medium: Radio

Program: The Inside Track

Broadcast Date: Jan. 14, 1989

Guest(s): Charles Dubin, Carl Lewis

Host: Mark Lee

Duration: 12:49

Last updated:
March 28, 2008