Beamonesque? : It May Take Track Pundits Years to Put Johnson’s 9.83 Seconds Into Perspective

Once it was established that Canadian Ben Johnson’s start in the 100 meters here Sunday was legal, the only debate concerned how to describe his world-record time of 9.83 seconds. To the American journalists, it was Beamonesque. The Canadian journalists preferred Beamonic.

Perhaps it was neither. Perhaps Johnson’s achievement in breaking Calvin Smith’s previous world record by a full 10th of a second was not on a level with Bob Beamon’s long jump of 29 feet 2 1/2 inches, which was more than a foot and a half better than the previous best and has stood as a world record for 19 years.

But it was close enough for the subject to merit considerable discussion Monday at the Olympic Stadium on the third day of track and field’s World Championships.

Not since the invasion of Grenada has so much been said about something that took so little time to finish.

“It was the best performance I’ve seen since Beamon’s 8.90 (meters),” said D.H. Potts, a Cal State Northridge professor and noted track and field historian. “This was a good second.”

Dave Johnson, statistical editor for the Palo Alto-based Track & Field News, said it might have been better than that, particularly considering that Beamon set his record in the thin air of Mexico City, which is 876 feet above sea level. Rome’s altitude is only 66 feet.

“Beamon’s jump certainly had more shock value as far as going beyond what anyone had ever seen or expected,” the statistician said. “But when you consider what we know now about the effects of altitude, this may have been a better performance.”

What did Ben Johnson do on the night he became part of track and field’s lore?

“I asked him how he was going to celebrate,” said Jim Christie, a Toronto Globe and Mail sports reporter who is writing Johnson’s authorized biography. As of Sunday, “The Fastest Man on Earth” is the working title.

“He looked at his watch and said, ‘It’s 9:45. I think I’ll go back to the hotel and go to bed.’ ”

That is about as long a declaration as anyone coaxes from Johnson, who is quiet even among friends, probably because of his speech impediment. But he does occasionally surprise his friends with his sense of humor.

Christie said he once asked Johnson how he adjusted to Canada after living the first 13 years of his life in Jamaica, moving from a predominantly black society to a predominantly white society.

“I decided before I came that I wasn’t going to be prejudiced,” he said.

Johnson’s older brother, Edward, introduced him to track one year after their mother moved them and their four sisters to Toronto. Their father remained in the small industrial town of Falmouth, Jamaica, where he works for the telephone company.

Gloria Johnson and her husband are not divorced, but she said she left home for the city because she thought it would offer more opportunities for her children. Little could she have known then the opportunity that awaited her second-youngest child.

On the first day in 1976 that Johnson, in his high-top sneakers, arrived with his brother at the York Institute track, Coach Charlie Francis saw the Jamaican teen-ager’s potential. He was more astute than his established sprinters, most of whom were several years older than Johnson and did not think much of their scrawny teammate.

When Francis’ most experienced sprinter finished well behind several others in a race, he retired on the spot.

“Even Ben beat me,” he said, unaware that someday he would be able to include himself among some distinguished company, including Carl Lewis, who finished second Sunday in 9.93.

Johnson recalled last week the first time he realized that he was fast, but it happened in the water, not on land. He said that while living in Jamaica he once outswam a shark.

“My mother told me the water was dangerous,” he said. “She was right. The shark almost et me.”

Asked if Johnson, 25, has a friend who is closer to him than others, Christie did not hesitate. Anyone who did not know better might have thought he would name Johnson’s British girlfriend, Jade Martin, Miss Black United Kingdom.

“His mother,” Christie said. “When he was on the European circuit this year, he called her every night in Toronto.”

Johnson also is close to his father, who saved enough money to buy a five-bedroom house and plots of land in Jamaica for each of his six children. Johnson goes to Falmouth as often as four times a year.

But after Sunday, Canada no doubt will claim Johnson as its own, something it has been reluctant to do.

Christie said he believes race has been a factor in that, although not the primary one. He said the main reason is that Johnson is good in a sport other than ice hockey. Christie added that Johnson’s stutter also has prevented him from receiving exposure, particularly on television.

Although Edward introduced his brother to track, he also is responsible, in a sense, for the stutter. Gloria Johnson said that Edward stuttered as a child and that Ben mimicked him. She told him to quit before he developed an impediment, but it was too late.

Still, Johnson’s performance Sunday has transformed him into a media darling. He was on the front page Monday of all of Canada’s major dailies. Christie said the only athlete today who has more name recognition in Canada than Johnson is Wayne Gretzky.

It also will make him wealthy. Los Angeles promoter Al Franken, in Rome for the World Championships, said that before Sunday, Johnson could command $10,000 in appearance fees from European organizers. Now, Johnson will receive as much as $25,000 per appearance, Franken said. That puts him in the same class with Lewis, Sebastian Coe, Edwin Moses, Said Aouita, Steve Cram and Sergei Bubka.

No one can say Johnson does not belong. He now has beaten Lewis, the 1983 world champion and the 1984 Olympic champion, in six of their last seven meetings, including five straight.

Johnson’s advantage over Lewis is primarily in his start, believed to be the best since West German Armin Hary’s. Hary, who won the 100 meters in the 1960 Rome Olympics, was the last non-American until Sunday to hold the world record in the 100 meters, 27 years ago.

Johnson’s reaction time to the gun Sunday was timed at .129 seconds. Lewis’, in contrast, was .196. Anything under .120 is automatically recalled as a false start.

Canadian statistician Joe Young has lobbied the International Amateur Athletic Federation to change the standard to .110 because he believes Johnson is capable of reacting in less than .120 without false starting.

Indeed, when Johnson’s reaction in the finals of the 60 meters at the indoor World Championships last March in Indianapolis was timed at .127, the start was recalled because the officials assumed that he had false-started. A replay revealed that he had not.

Johnson won that afternoon in 6.41, an indoor world record.

“This is a landmark performance,” Italian track and field expert Roberto Quarcetani said after the 100 meters Sunday. “What is so incredible is that the man has broken the world records in the indoor and outdoor championships in the same year.

“A man with a fast start may be able to win indoors at 60 meters, but he does not always maintain his speed over 100 meters. This man does.”

An analysis of Sunday’s race provided by the biomechanics and computing department of Charles University in Prague, Czechoslovakia, revealed that Johnson had a .08-second lead over Lewis after 10 meters, extended it to .12 after 30 meters and maintained that advantage until the final 20 meters.

Even though Lewis’ 9.93 equalled the previous world record, he finished second by a meter.

Potts said that Lewis has two options if he wants to win a sprint at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea.

“Either he can get a new coach to teach him how to start or change his event to the 200,” Potts said.

Potts sounded as if he would recommend Charlie Francis to Lewis.

“Obviously, Ben Johnson’s coach knows some things nobody else does,” Potts said.

“You can usually identify a top sprinter by the time he’s 19 or 20. But this guy was nowhere in 1983. He didn’t even qualify for the finals at the World Championships in Helsinki. In 1984, he was third in the Olympics. For him to develop this much this late, he must have a coach who knows what he’s doing.”

Francis believes in extensive weight training for sprinters, believing they can run flat-out from start to finish if they are strong enough. Johnson is a compact sprinter at 5 feet 10 3/4 inches and 165, but his muscular build makes him look more like Herschel Walker than Bob Hayes.

Johnson was in such good condition before this meet that he predicted he would run 9.85.

“He called his shot,” said Dave Johnson of Track & Field News.

But he said he does not believe the sprinter will improve on his record.

“I don’t think he’ll do anything like that again,” he said. “I don’t think he’ll have to do it again. He won’t be this fired up again.”

If Johnson does not break the record, it will be awhile before anyone does, the statistician said.

“I don’t think it’ll go in this century,” he said.

In that way, Johnson’s performance Sunday surely was Beamonesque. Or Beamonic. But when he recalls his childhood in Jamaica, he is not surprised by anything that has happened for him. An elderly fortune teller once read Johnson’s palm and predicted great things that would take him to all parts of the world.

“I laughed then,” he said. “But I have looked back many times and realized that old man was telling the truth.”