Athletics Will Never Escape the Shame of Ben Johnson ; the Big Interview Michael Johnson Four-Time Olympic Champion Says That the Drugs Scandal in 1988 Changed Sport Forever with Fans Now Suspicious of Any Record Displaysexclusive

Summary

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MICHAEL JOHNSON admits that athletics, indeed sport, has lost the innocence it had when he was a young boy in Dallas dreaming of just running fast.

"The great thing about sports is the debates you have," says the 43-year-old. "Twenty years ago the debate between two guys in the bar would be who is the better athlete? Now it is which guy is on drugs? And whether that performance they saw is real or not? It has opened up a whole new debate about sport."

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Extract

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Athletics Will Never Escape the Shame of Ben Johnson ; the Big Interview Michael Johnson Four-Time Olympic Champion Says That the Drugs Scandal in 1988 Changed Sport Forever with Fans Now Suspicious of Any Record Displaysexclusive

I am talking to Johnson during a break at a conference on international sports security in Doha, Qatar where the subject of drug cheats is debated.

The four-time Olympic champion is one of the speakers and tells me he knows the moment when drugs changed sport forever.

It was the night in Seoul in 1988 when Canadian Ben Johnson, having won the 100metres, tested positi...

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