Johnson Won’t Lose Medals From ’84 Olympics

International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch today said Ben Johnson will not be stripped of the two bronze medals he won at the 1984 Olympic Games despite Johnson’s admission that he used banned anabolic steroids.

The International Amateur Athletic Federation, track and field’s international governing body, voted Tuesday to expunge the 100-meter world record of 9.83 seconds Johnson set in 1987 at the World Track and Field Championships in Rome. It will be removed from the federation’s updated record book to be issued Jan. 1.

Johnson was stripped of the gold medal he won in the 100-meter race at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul after he tested positive for a steroid. He later confessed that he had used the drug since 1981.

Samaranch, who arrived in his native Barcelona to attend this weekend’s World Cup athletic competition, said in an interview that the IOC is not bound to follow the IAAF’s move and strip Johnson of his Olympic honors.

“We (the IOC) are respecting the international federation,” Samaranch said. “They can do as they think best.”

Asked whether the IOC will request that Johnson return his bronze medals from the Los Angeles Games, Samaranch said, “No.”

Johnson was third in the 100-meter dash in ’84 and was a member of Canada’s 4 x 100-meter bronze-medal relay team. That relay team also included admitted steroid users Desai Williams and Tony Sharpe.

Johnson was banned from competition for two years by the IOC after he tested positive for an anabolic steroid at the Seoul Olympics last September.

Samaranch has already stated the IOC would welcome Johnson at the next Olympics, to be held in Barcelona in 1992.

Samaranch was interviewed after addressing the International Amateur Athletic Federation, where he called for increased penalties against coaches, agents and trainers who help athletes use drugs and a clearer understanding of which drugs are used to illegally boost performance and which are used for legitimate medical purposes.

“We want a clear definition, a philosophical definition of what is doping,” he said.

IAAF President Primo Nebiolo also called for tougher action against those surrounding drug-using athletes and said the IAAF will make “an immediate and serious inquiry” into possible penalties for these doping middlemen.

“We not only will follow the athlete, we will follow also the coaches, the agents, those surrounding the athlete,” Nebiolo said. “We know that sometimes the athlete is pushed into using drugs, and in the future we will find sanctions against these people.”