9.79

Whenever you read the name Ben Johnson, you’ll find that it’s typically preceded by, “disgraced sprinter.”

Kind of like Academy Award Winner—only in a way that brings absolutely no positive connotations.

Back in 1988, when he won the Olympic gold medal in Seoul, Korea and shattered the world record for the 100 Metre, he was an absolute hero. I was a student in Montreal at the time and my friends and I were so euphoric, so energized by his victory that we sprinted down St. Laurent screaming for joy. It was a completely spontaneous act. We simply could not prevent ourselves from running, as every elated cell in our bodies was commanding us to do this.

Of course, you had to be willfully blind to not realize Johnson was on steroids. Even his nickname, “Big Ben,” implicitly hinted at his usage, and his eyes were jaundiced and yellow– a clear indication his liver was over-taxed from the drugs. He looked like a bull, and his mood was always remote and defensive, happier (if that could ever be a word associated with him) in the shadows than in the spotlight.

Carl Lewis, the great American athlete and his Arch Enemy, was everything that Johnson was not. Lithe, maniacally outgoing and resembling Grace Jones, Lewis loved the spotlight and seemed to effortlessly excel at every sport he touched. He sang, sold sweatshirts and played at being a kind of corporation, a latter day Muhammad Ali (only absent the charisma), if you will, and he was everything we hated about America, and then to have somebody as quiet and unloved as Johnson, not just defeat him but crush him, seemed a titanic victory for underdogs all over the world, and it was this that sent us shouting down the street.

IN YOUR FACE, USA!!

Of course, a couple of days later it was revealed that Johnson was doping. He was stripped of his medal and ever since has been known as “disgraced sprinter Ben Johnson.” Post fall, he has been in trouble for pointing a starter’s pistol– from his Porsche– at another motorist while on the highway, was hired by Gaddafi as a football coach for his son (resulting in the son being suspended from the league for drug use), raced a horse and a stock car, headed a failed clothing line called Catch Me, chased a Romani gang who robbed him of his wallet in Rome and failed to catch them, and endorsed a sport’s drink called Cheetah Power Surge, the commercials of which player off the fact Johnson was a cheater.

It’s been this nearly-forgotten way for almost thirty years, and it must get kind of exhausting, but every once in awhile Johnson raises his head from the shadows, most recently emerging for a photo-op to lend his support to Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s unceasing and exhaustless bid for re-election. Disgrace, one would presume, and not her better angel redemption, being what brought the two men together under the Big, Confused Tent that is Ford Nation. *1

*1 It’s as if Marvel Comics was creating a super-group of villains in the Ford camp, all readying for some great apocalyptic battle to take place in a future issue.