05/06/2024
At a lunch date not long ago, my good friend Mary Ormsby slid a copy of her debut book across the table to me - World’s Fastest Man*: The Incredible Life of Ben Johnson.
“Give it a read” she said. “Let me know what you think.”
I chewed through the book in two days – unable to put it down - and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.
When Mary first mentioned the project to me a few years ago, two thoughts ran through my mind. The first was: Why bother? What more can be said about the biggest letdown in Canadian sports history? Ben went from hero to cheater to a sort of pathetic memory. ‘Nuff said. The second was: if Mary thinks there’s something here, she’s probably right.
Of course, the book starts by transporting us back to those thrilling, then crushing, days at the 1988 Seoul Olympics: the high of Ben Johnson tearing up the track in Seoul to take gold in the 100-metre dash, followed by the crushing low of the news that he had tested positive for stanozolol, a synthetic testosterone, followed by the news footage of the disgraced sprinter exiting the Games and returning back home.
From there, though, Mary tells the backstory of all of the “villains” who emerged in the wake of the scandal: coach Charlie Francis, advisor Dr. Jamie Astaphan, and sprinters such as Angela Issajenko and Ben Johnson himself. It’s here that the book takes a turn into the unexpected. Through deep investigation and skillful storytelling, Mary reveals the internal loyalties and rivalries within the Mazda Optimist Track Club. She humanizes the cheaters without letting them off the hook.
This sets up the most provocative question of the book: Is it possible to railroad a cheater? There are villains here too – in the ill-prepared testing protocol of the Games; in Canada’s flawed and ill-prepared appeal of Johnson’s disqualification; in the American team’s pre-Games testing of athletes (not for disqualification, but for “familiarity with testing protocols”); and in the search for a mysterious friend of rival sprinter Carl Lewis, who was somehow allowed into the room where Ben Johnson delivered the urine sample that would take away his treasured gold medal.
World’s Fastest Man* is by no means an exoneration of Ben Johnson - nor does the book excuse him. Instead, what Mary Ormsby has crafted is a well-rounded, warts-and-all profile of Ben, as well as a comprehensive examination of the system that branded him – accurately, but not altogether fairly – as a cheater.
As the Paris Olympics approach, there might not be a more appropriate and timely read available.
Sutherland House
For two days in late September 1988, Canada’s Ben Johnson was the most celebrated athlete on the planet. Winner of the 100-meter sprint at the Seoul Olympics in a world record 9.79 seconds, he’d just had time to say, “A gold medal—that’s something no one can take away from you,” before t...
