Johnson Lawyer Didn’t Seek Facts on Drug Use : ‘I Was Better Off Not Knowing,’ He Testifies at Inquiry, Also Discounts Mystery Man Theory

Richard Pound, a Montreal lawyer and vice president of the International Olympic Committee, said today that he did not ask Ben Johnson whether he was on drugs before arguing the sprinter’s case before the IOC at the Olympics in Seoul.

“As a lawyer, I thought I was better off not knowing,” Pound told the Canadian federal inquiry into drugs and amateur sports.

Pound also said he did not have much confidence in a theory presented by Johnson’s camp that a mystery man had spiked the sprinter’s drink with banned steroids just before his drug test.

Vetoed Hunt for Man

He vetoed proposals to track down the man because he was sure that the man had a valid reason to be in the testing room and was not involved in sabotage.

“The best thing in the world for (our) defense was not to find the mystery man,” Pound said.

Pound is the 47th witness to appear in 46 days of testimony.

With all the mystery surrounding last fall’s events in Seoul, seven simple words could hold the key to Johnson’s downfall: “Benny, have you taken any pink pills?”

Two Canadian officials testified last week that they heard Dr. Jamie Astaphan ask the sprinter that question shortly after learning he had failed a drug test and lost his gold medal in the 100 meters.

“The question was asked twice,” said Dr. William Stanish, chief medical officer to Canada’s national team. “There was no verbal response.”

Neither Stanish nor Carol Anne Letheren, the chef de mission to Canada’s athletes, ever asked Johnson’s personal physician what the pink pills were. But evidence before the inquiry suggests that Johnson had carried his own stock of pink steroid tablets for more than a year.

Astaphan and Johnson’s coach, Charlie Francis, have insisted that the sprinter did not take the banned drug stanozolol, which turned up in his urine test after the race. They claimed that he must have been sabotaged.

Johnson, who had his gold medal taken away and was banned from international competition for two years, and his doctor are expected to testify in the next month.

Astaphan’s query and the fact that the commission has abandoned, with Johnson’s blessing, an investigation of the sabotage theory raises the specter of a far less sinister answer to the question of what happened.

Johnson’s lawyer, Edward Futerman, has suggested that his client could have confused his medications or mistaken a stanozolol tablet for something else.

Testimony indicates that Johnson--holding fast to his statement he never knowingly took banned drugs--took numerous pills and concoctions.