A longtime friend and adviser of Ben...

A longtime friend and adviser of Ben Johnson in Toronto said that the sprinter was capable of handling most of his own business affairs without assistance, countering suggestions by Johnson’s attorney that the sprinter did not have the intelligence to know whether he was using anabolic steroids.

Ross Earl, president of the track and field club of which Johnson was a member for 12 years, told the Canadian government’s commission of inquiry into drug use by athletes that Johnson chose his own architect for the house he was having built outside Toronto, negotiated mortgage agreements and dealt with a real estate agent.

Earlier in the hearings, Johnson’s attorney, Ed Futerman, suggested that Johnson was a slow-witted and uneducated young man who was duped into taking steroids by his coach, Charlie Francis.

Also Thursday, a former Canadian sprinter, Cheryl Thibedeau, disputed testimony by her former boyfriend, sprinter and bobsledder Andrew Mowatt, that he was not aware he was injected with steroids by Dr. Jamie Astaphan, who also treated Johnson and other Canadian athletes. Thibedeau said, “He knew what he was getting.”