The Ben Johnson Detective Agency

If you're an old enough track fan, you'll remember Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson. Back in the 1980s, Johnson had established himself as the fastest ever in the 100m dash. He won Olympic gold in the event at the 1988 (Seoul) Olympic Games, beating Carl Lewis. But when the report on Johnson's post-race urine sample came back from the lab, it showed that Johnson had tested positive for the banned anabolic steroid stanozolol. Johnson was stripped of his medal. The disqualified sprinter howled that the positive test must have been the result of a spiked drink he was handed after the race, but his protests went unheeded.

Now, over twenty years later, Johnson claims to have proof that he was indeed the victim of a stanozolol-laced drink. You'll have to wait to see this "proof," though. It's set to appear in Johnson's upcoming autobiography, coming to A Bookseller Near You in February. Hopefully his book will sell many, many copies, so that Johnson can turn his Sherlockian talents to other longstanding mysteries. I expect that in the next few years Ben Johnson will discover:

• The identity of the true killer of Nicole Brown Simpson.
• How NASA faked the moon landings.
• The origin and location of the alien corpses found near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.
• Adolph Hitler's hideout in Argentina.
• Proof that Dr. Frederick Cook was the first to reach the North Pole.
  

Not to mention the embarrassment that Johnson could have saved the Bush administration if only he had been turned loose in Iraq to search for the Weapons of Mass Destruction. The greatest mystery to me is why this super-sleuth was ever wasting his time in athletics.

Seriously, Johnson's story about a spiked drink leading to his disqualification seemed pathetic at the time, and it's just sad that he's still clinging to it over twenty years later. Mike Hurst has reported the story in the Sydney (Australia) Daily Telegraph, and it's clear from what Hurst has written that Johnson's version of events is no more believable in the 21st century than it was in the 20th. No matter how many "confessions" Johnson produces from "conspirators," it is still metabolically impossible that for a spiked drink to have produced the specific positive test that led to disqualification. Johnson himself no longer claims to be clean, or to have never used stanozolol, he just says that he wasn't using it that day.

I'm a big fan of athletics books, especially biography, but I'll probably give this one a pass.

Links:

• "Johnson finds his drink spiker," by Mike Hurst
  http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/more-sports/johnson-finds-his-drink-spiker/story-e6frey6i-1225813659234
  
  
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