The record of the dope test that stripped former Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson of his gold medal at the 1988 Seoul Olympics had been altered by hand-written scrawls, according to a report published in The Star. No Canadian Olympic team official even saw Johnson’s lab report in Seoul, the daily said.
“If I had seen this in Seoul, I would have kept my medal,” Johnson was quoted as saying by The Star. “If you can’t see the evidence, how can others condemn somebody?”
Johnson had won the men’s 100m race with a time of 9.79 seconds and although he denied taking any steroids then, he later admitted to taking steroids throughout his career to the fact-finding team of the Dublin Inquiry, which was established by the Canadian federal government.
According to The Star report, the lab record contains “clinical data, dates, times, sample codes, plus the scientific test results that detected traces of the banned anabolic steroid stanozolol in the Toronto sprinter’s urine after he won the 100 metres in world-record time.”
The 56-year-old sprinter now says that the medical commission did not want his coach – the late Charlie Francis – to see the document as he would have spotted the mistakes. “Charlie had a brilliant mind. He would have noticed mistakes,” he said.
You can read the full story on The Star here.