Used Steroids in College, Runner Says : Williams’ Claim He Took Drug Briefly in 1987 Is Challenged

A Canadian runner testified today that when he and sprinter Desai Williams were at Clemson University 10 years ago, they and other Canadian athletes took steroids.

Williams earlier told a Canadian inquiry into drugs and sports that he took the banned muscle-building drug only briefly in 1987 and angrily denied allegations that he began taking steroids in 1979.

But sprinter Dave McKnight, who was Williams’ roommate at Clemson, said he and Williams took steroid tablets together.

“We used to joke about it--how big we were getting and how strong we were getting,” McKnight said.

McKnight, a 1984 Olympian, said he, Williams and other Canadian athletes at Clemson got the drugs from Peter Cross, a former coach at a Toronto track club where Ben Johnson trained.

The inquiry was called after Johnson was stripped of a gold medal for testing positive for steroids at last year’s Seoul Olympics.

In testimony Wednesday, sprinter Mike Sokolowski said he saw Italy’s top sprinter, Pierfrancesco Pavoni, injected with steroids in Toronto in the months leading up to the Seoul Games.

Sokolowski, 27, who has admitted using steroids himself, said the Italian sprint champion came to Toronto to receive steroids from Charlie Francis, the now-suspended national sprint coach.

In Rome today Pavoni reacted angrily to the allegation and threatened to sue Sokolowski.

Pavoni said the allegation was “a vile lie which leaves me profoundly indignant.”

He told reporters: “I shall now ask authorization from my club and my federation to undertake legal action against such absurd insinuations.”