Johnson Got ‘Something Extra,’ at Rome, Coach Says

Ben Johnson may have used a banned substance four hours before breaking the 100-meter world record in the 1987 World Championships at Rome, a Canadian track and field coach testified Tuesday.

On the 44th day of testimony in the Canadian government’s inquiry into drug use by athletes, Gary Lubin, a former assistant coach to Charlie Francis for the Scarborough Optimists Club, said that Dr. Jamie Astaphan told him that he had given Johnson “something extra” before the race at Rome Aug. 30, 1987.

If that is true, it could strengthen the Ontario Track and Field Assn.’s campaign to have Johnson’s name erased from the record book. He won the 100 meters at Rome in 9.83 seconds, breaking U.S. sprinter Calvin Smith’s four-year-old world record of 9.93.

It also would raise questions about the drug testing at Rome by the International Amateur Athletic Federation, which governs track and field. IAAF officials said that no banned substances had been found in the test that Johnson took after the race.

Thirteen months later, Johnson ran a faster time, 9.79, in the Olympic 100 meters at Seoul, but the ink hardly was dry before that record was disallowed when his subsequent drug test revealed traces of an anabolic steroid, stanozolol.

Carl Lewis finished second at Seoul in 9.92, which probably would stand as the world record if Johnson’s time at Rome were nullified. Despite the efforts of the Ontario officials, IAAF Secretary General John Holt said previously that Johnson’s record would stand regardless of information received later because he had passed the Rome drug test.

Francis earlier testified that Johnson had been on a steroid program since 1981, but he said he was not aware of any use of banned substances by the sprinter within two months of the World Championships.

Recounting a conversation he had with Astaphan at a restaurant near the York University track and field center in late January, 1988, Lubin said that the doctor, who began working with Scarborough athletes in 1983, boasted about his role in Johnson’s quick reaction to the starter’s pistol at Rome.

Johnson was out of the blocks so much faster than the other sprinters that it created speculation about whether he had beaten the gun. After looking at the official photograph, the IAAF president, Primo Nebiolo, ruled that it was a fair start.

“(Astaphan) said, ‘Yeah, I helped Ben Johnson four days before and four hours before the race,’ ” Lubin said. “He said that he had given something extra to Ben and that it really helped.

“I said, ‘Was it something illegal?’ He said it had to be masked. I thought it meant cheating. I thought it was something that wasn’t supposed to be in somebody’s body.”

Masking agents, such as diuretics, can conceal the use of steroids and other banned substances in an athlete’s system. Lubin said he did not question Astaphan further and never learned the name of the substance referred to by the doctor.

Earlier during the inquiry, Astaphan’s attorney, David Sookram, had acknowledged that his client used steroids in treating athletes. But in cross-examination Tuesday, Sookram questioned Lubin’s motives for revealing the conversation.

Sookram said that Lubin, now the coach of the North York Track Club, was seeking publicity, which Lubin denied. A further suggestion that Lubin wanted revenge against Astaphan because the doctor would not promote to athletes a bee-pollen mixture that the coach sells drew a rebuke from the inquiry’s commissioner, Charles L. Dubin.