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Ben Johnson: Built for speed

Broadcast Date: May 7, 1987

Ben Johnson is the ultimate running machine. His explosive start is more like a horizontal leap; each stride uses enough energy to light up a city block, and his top speed is 43 kilometres per hour. Training four hours a day for 11 years doesn't hurt, either. In 1987, the budding track star is starting to get noticed. In this clip, scientists, coaches and computers try to comprehend the physics of a man who can outrun every person on the planet.

Ben Johnson: Built for speed

• Ben Johnson moved to Canada from Jamaica at age 14. He was a gangly kid with a stutter and a strong accent. Coach Charlie Francis, who began working with Johnson when he was 15, described him as "a skinny, 93-pound runt."
• According to Francis, Johnson was a poor runner when he first started training. Francis says once a particularly slow kid quit the team, citing the reason, "even Ben is beating me."

• Ben Johnson's first major international race was the 100-metre sprint in the 1983 world championships. He was eliminated in the semifinals.
• In 1984, at age 19, Ben Johnson raced for Canada at the Los Angeles Olympics, finishing third behind American sprinter Carl Lewis. He won another bronze medal on the 4x100m relay team.


• In 1986 Johnson beat world champion Lewis at the Goodwill Games in Moscow. Johnson's time of 9.95 seconds was the fastest ever recorded at sea level. (The world record was Calvin Smith's 9.93, set at altitude in Colorado. The thin air at high elevations is seen as an asset for explosive athletic events such as sprinting and jumping, though the opposite holds true for endurance events.)

• In 1986 Ben Johnson was selected as the Canadian Press male athlete of the year (the Lionel Conacher award) and Canada's outstanding athlete (the Lou Marsh Trophy).
• According to Johnson, a Jamaican soothsayer told him at age 12 that he would one day travel the world and become famous.

Ben Johnson: Built for speed

Medium: Television

Program: The Fifth Estate

Broadcast Date: May 7, 1987

Guest(s): Charlie Francis, Jeff Gowan, Ben Johnson, Gordon Robertson

Reporter: Robert McKeown

Duration: 6:03

Race footage: International Association of Athletics Federations.

Last updated:
Aug. 20, 2009