Lewis Sues for $182 Million Over Steroid Story

Olympic track champion Carl Lewis has filed a libel suit against West Germany’s Stern magazine and a former teammate, seeking $182 million in damages for a story that alleged steroid use on his part, his lawyer, Timothy Danson, said Thursday in Toronto.

The suit, filed last Friday with the Ontario Supreme Court, named Stern publisher Rolf Schmidt-Holtz, editor-in-chief Michael Jurgs and editor Martin Hagele as defendants, as well as former teammate Darrell Robinson, a 400-meter runner who lives in Toronto.

Robinson was quoted as having said in a Stern story last September that both Lewis and Florence Griffith Joyner, a triple Olympic gold medalist, had used banned anabolic steroids to improve their performances.

Lewis, who won four gold medals at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, successfully defended his long jump title at the 1988 Seoul Games and received the 100-meter gold medal when Canadian Ben Johnson was disqualified after doping tests showed that he had used stanozolol, a steroid.