30 FOR 30: 9.79* (TV)
Summary
One in this series of sports documentaries presented by ESPN about important people and events from 1979 to 2009.
This film concerns the finals of the men’s 100-meter dash at the 1988 Summer Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea and its controversial results. On September 24th, 1988, eight men take their starting positions for the final: Robson da Silva of Brazil, Ray Stewart of Jamaica, Carl Lewis of the United States, Linford Christie of Great Britain, Calvin Smith of the United States, Ben Johnson of Canada, Desai Williams of Canada, and Dennis Mitchell of the United States. Johnson wins the race with a world record time of 9.79 seconds, much to the excitement of the assembled crowd. However, the results are altered when it is discovered that Johnson used performance-enhancing drugs. Johnson recounts his experiences in Seoul and combs through his old trophies and fan-mail. He discusses how he was born in Falmouth, Jamaica in 1961 during a period of widespread illness, and that he barely escaped infant mortality. In 1971 his family moves an apartment in suburban Toronto, and he suffers from bullying due to being the only black student at his school. He overcomes bullying by demonstrating his prowess in footraces.
Williams recounts how he was born on the small Caribbean island of St. Kitts and moved to Canada in 1973. The drastic transition in climate and culture proves to be difficult for Williams to handle as a child, and as a teenager he joins his school’s track team, the Scarborough Optimists, to get the chance to travel. He is coached by Charlie Francis, a former Olympic track runner who feels frustrated by Canada’s inability to win a gold medal and feels that young athletes of color represent the future of Canadian athletics. Johnson is another of his recruits, the youngest and “least promising” of the bunch; Williams recounts beating him regularly until Johnson surpassed him. Lewis recounts how many believed he had a personal hatred of Johnson due to their drastically different personalities, but he says that this was not the case. He and his coach Tom Tellez talk about his training and attitude about track, and Lewis’s abilities allow him to easily beat many of his competitors. Eventually he joins the Santa Monica Track Club under Joe Douglas, and he breaks out of a shy persona in order to become more personable and improve his public image. He notes that at the time he was unconcerned with Johnson, as he lacked the “core talent” necessary to beat him.
Johnson and Lewis first meet at the 1980 Pan American Junior Athletics Championships in Ontario. Johnson starts strong but is unable to maintain his speed, losing to Lewis. At this time, athletes in some countries such as East Germany are accused of using performance-enhancing drugs in order to secure their victories. Faced with these obstacles and after much consideration, Johnson decides that he has no choice but to use such drugs himself, aided by Francis. All the athletes in Seoul encounter similar dilemmas; da Silva recounts how he felt morally obligated to abstain from performance-enhancers, and Mitchell, Christie, and Stewart talk about their reasons for refusing to use such drugs. Lewis and his coaches similarly insist that most athletes choose not to take drugs. That being said, there are admissions by some that drug use was quite high amongst athletes at that time, and it remains a consideration which affects how the athletes think and respond. In 1983, the world record holder was Smith with a 100-meter dash time of 9.93 seconds. Smith recounts that at the time he disapproved of Lewis’s demeanor and training methods, viewing him as “just another athlete.”
Also in 1983, the United States Olympic Committee conducts preparations for the upcoming 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. This includes massive overhauls to their drug testing procedures, and it is discovered that many athletes use substances to thin their urine in order to erase signs of drugs from their urine samples. It is conducted as an “educational program,” but some officials see the testing as a means of surreptitiously indicating to the athletes when to take their performance-enhancers and the means for them to elude detection. The 1984 games begin, and Lewis talks about his efforts to win multiple gold medals and how he was concerned about his appearance and image during the games. He ends up winning four gold medals, including beating Johnson in the 100-meter dash. During the last few days of the competition, when the track and field finals take place, the heaviest drug testing takes place and many United States athletes test positive for drugs in their systems. Some of the results of these tests never are presented to the public, and it is unknown what exactly happened to them. It is also around this time that human growth hormone becomes available and alters the athletic landscape, as it is undetectable to the testing being conducted. The use of human growth hormone comes to be visibly identifiable via sudden growth of the jaw, and athletes wearing braces become commonplace. Most athletes get their supply from Dr. Robert Kerr, a Los Angeles physician; at this point human growth hormone is only obtainable from human corpses.
Johnson meticulously reviews his loss to Lewis at the 1984 games and realizes that the advantage Lewis has over him is in physical strength and endurance. Francis brings in a doctor to his training camp in order to supply Johnson with human growth hormone. Johnson begins taking weekly injections and uses the increased strength to undergo increasingly strenuous training; it is explained that the drugs were mostly used to boost training in this manner and that by the time competitions rolled around the athletes would already be off the drugs for months. At that time, no testing is performed on athletes outside of competitions, and so this strategy proves to be feasible. At the 1985 Weltklasse in Zurich, Switzerland, many of the athletes in the future 1988 Seoul games assemble; Lewis makes incredible profits off of his many international track meets due to the tough negotiation of his manager Joe Douglas. It is there that Johnson beats Lewis at the 100-meter dash, the first such occurrence after nine failed attempts. Lewis finds himself distressed by this sudden reversal; at the 1986 Weltklasse Johnson beats him by an even wider margin.
Johnson’s wins attract a great deal of attention for both him and Canada, and the press seizes upon his rivalry with Lewis. Both athletes appreciate the setup of the rivalry, but by 1987 Lewis becomes frustrated with his string of losses to Johnson. At the 1987 World Track and Field Championships in Rome, Johnson again defeats Lewis with a time of 9.84 seconds, setting a new world record. There is some question of whether Johnson had a false start, and Lewis by this point is aware of Johnson’s drug use. Both men prepare themselves for the Olympics the next year, and Johnson is called “the fastest man in the world” by the press. Smith is dismissive of Johnson’s win, and he notes that he and many other athletes had already determined that Johnson was using drugs. However, they are unwilling to expose Johnson, fearing that they might become barred from running in some events for doing so. Lewis, however, talks about it in London, and Francis works to deny everything and discredit Lewis’s claims. Some dismiss Lewis’s accusations as him attempting to create excuses for his losses. Meanwhile, Johnson becomes a national celebrity and attracts legions of fans in Canada. Williams notices Johnson’s progress and in 1987 returns to being coached under Francis.
However, by that time Francis’s training camp is in the midst of an ongoing struggle between Francis and Dr. Jamie Astaphan, the doctor supplying him with human growth hormone, as each tries to take credit for the athletes’ success. Four months before the Olympics, Johnson pulls a hamstring during training. Instead of being overseen by Francis, he flies to St. Kitts to recover under Dr. Astaphan, advocating a much more laid-back recovery treatment. Johnson recalls it being “the best six weeks of [his] life.” Dr. Astaphan gives him a series of pills and treatments, the contents of which are unknown to Johnson at the time. He returns two months before the Olympics begin, and Lewis specifically calls him out at the United States Olympic Trials in July of 1988. Lewis tests positive for illegal stimulants at the trials, possibly earning him a three-month ban and ineligibility to compete in the games. After further testing, the United States Olympic Committee exonerates Lewis, concluding that they experienced a false positive. The results were only publicly released fifteen years later and would not have tested positive by modern standards.
Five weeks before the Olympics, Lewis manages to beat Johnson in Zurich, forcing him to change his strategy. At this point, Johnson uses a steroid formulated in East Germany thought to be undetectable. The Olympics begin and Johnson focuses his efforts into reaching the 100-meter dash final. The final takes place and each competitor recounts their feelings and memories of the occasion. Even the other racers are amazed by Johnson’s speed; Lewis admits that he cannot recall the race itself, possibly due to something in his subconscious mind. He recalls the intense sense of disappointment that he felt and that Johnson recoiled from him somewhat when he went to congratulate him. Johnson recounts that he was motivated to victory on behalf of his mother and the hard work she put in raising him. The victory is watched all over Canada, and Canadians are ecstatic about Johnson’s success.
The day after the victory, rumors start to circulate about Johnson testing positive for performance-enhancers. Francis is confronted about this and denies it. Francis becomes convinced that Johnson was sabotaged via someone slipping a pill into his drink in order to get his system to test positive for drugs. They lack evidence to support this claim, and on September 27th, 1988, the IOC strips Johnson of his gold medal. News of this event spreads quickly and invites much confusion and speculation. Johnson leaves his hotel and travels to the airport to escort his mother away from the press. The IOC holds a press conference to officially disqualify him from the games, and Johnson’s situation invites a combination of anger and sympathy from his competitors. Many Canadians feel betrayed by Johnson, who was viewed as being a national hero. He holds a press conference denying that he took any performance-enhancing drugs; in the present-day he regrets doing so, as he was following the advice of his legal counsel. His statement implies that Francis doped him without consent, and an official inquiry is called in order to learn the truth of the matter. It is discovered that Dr. Astaphan was using a steroid derived from a solution intended for horses rather than human beings, shocking some members of the inquiry. Dr. Astaphan admits his wrongdoing, forcing Johnson to do the same.
The inquiry results in several Canadian track and field stars confessing to their drug use and being subsequently banned from competition. Johnson’s sponsors pull out, costing him millions of dollars in endorsement contracts. Francis’s assertion of sabotage is proven to be false, due to a combination of Dr. Astaphan’s misleading advice about the drugs he was supplying and the fact that Johnson was injected too close to the race. However, Lewis soon releases his autobiography which claims that Johnson was sabotaged by a junior member of his track team attempting to blackmail him after threatening to reveal his drug usage. It is revealed that the member did in fact slip steroids into his drink in order to keep his enhancers in his system long enough for them to show up on his testing. Johnson claims that he met the member again in 2004, whereupon he revealed what he did and stated that he performed similar actions on many occasions.
In the 1992 Olympic Games, Christie wins the gold medal in the 100-meter dash, but in 1999 is suspended for two years on suspicion of drug usage, something he denies vehemently. Mitchell faces a similar suspension in 1998 due to elevated levels of testosterone in his system, admitting that he made “bad decisions.” Stewart is indicted in 2010 on charges of trafficking drugs to high-level athletes and receives a lifetime ban from coaching. Williams admits to steroid use in 1988 and is given a two year ban. Johnson has a second positive test in 1993, earning him a lifetime ban from competition. Johnson’s expunging from the 1988 Olympics means that Smith is moved up from fourth place to third place, earning him the bronze medal; similarly, Lewis is given the gold medal instead of Johnson. A round of testing using frozen samples from 1984 is conducted using modern testing methods, and many more athletes are found to have been using drugs, although the results are not disclosed and it is decided to leave the matter alone. Commercials deleted.
Details
- NETWORK: ESPN
- DATE: October 3, 2012
- RUNNING TIME: 1:22:18
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: 114764
- GENRE: Public affairs/Documentaries; Sports
- SUBJECT HEADING: African-American Collection - Sports; TV - Public affairs/documentaries; TV - Sports
- SERIES RUN: ESPN - TV series, 2009-
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Charlotte Moore … Executive Producer
- Maxine Watson … Executive Producer
- Barbara Truyen … Executive Producer
- John Battsek … Executive Producer
- Gideon Boulting … Executive Producer
- John Dahl … Executive Producer
- Connor Schell … Executive Producer
- Bill Simmons … Executive Producer
- Daniel Gordon … Producer, Director, Writer
- Deirdre Fenton … Producer
- Nuno Godolphim … Associate Producer
- Gretha Viana … Director
- Nicholas Packer … Writer
- David Studwell … Researcher
- Tim Atack … Music by
- David Harewood … Narrator
- Robson da Silva … Interviewee
- Ray Stewart … Interviewee
- Carl Lewis … Interviewee
- Linford Christie … Interviewee
- Calvin Smith … Interviewee
- Ben Johnson … Interviewee
- Desai Williams … Interviewee
- Dennis Mitchell … Interviewee
- Mary Ormsby … Interviewee
- Angella Issajenko … Interviewee
- Tom Tellez … Interviewee
- Joe Douglas … Interviewee
- Russ Rogers … Interviewee
- Wayne Williams … Interviewee
- Robert Voy … Interviewee
- Don Catlin … Interviewee
- John Hoberman … Interviewee
- Andreas Bruegger … Interviewee
- Dick Pound … Interviewee
- Diane Clement … Interviewee
- Robert Armstrong … Interviewee
- Jamie Astaphan
- Charlie Francis
- Robert Kerr
- Robert Smith