Daley Thompson Says Johnson Deserves Lifetime Ban

Daley Thompson, former Olympic decathlon champion, says Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson should be banned for life for testing positive for steroids at last year’s Olympic Games.

“I hope the authorities make sure that Ben Johnson can never run again because of the damage he has done to the sport,” Thompson said in an interview published in Athletics Today, a weekly track magazine published in Great Britain.

Thompson, the Olympic decathlon champion in 1980 and 1984 and the world champion in 1983, also said that drugs and commercialism have so tainted track and field that he does not want to see his young daughter enter the sport when she grows up.

“I would much rather she played tennis or something else,” Thompson said.