Analysis : Lewis, Offering No Proof, Damages Griffith Joyner

After the 1983 track and field World Championships in Helsinki, Finland, a European newspaper reported that Carl Lewis’ winning performances in the 100 meters and long jump had been aided by his use of human growth hormone, a size- and strength-enhancing agent naturally produced by the body but considered illegal by the International Olympic Committee if acquired unnaturally, such as with a needle and syringe.

In reporting later that year on human growth hormone, The Times referred to the newspaper’s allegation against Lewis. Lewis denied the charge and complained that it was irresponsible for the European newspaper to make such a claim and for The Times to repeat it without evidence.

In retrospect, Times reporters involved in the story agreed. Once all of the parties were on speaking terms, belated apologies were issued to Lewis and his manager, Joe Douglas of the Santa Monica Track Club. We had learned our lesson.

Unfortunately, Lewis hadn’t. Or if he had, he forgot it this week.

Speaking Sunday to a group of students at the University of Pennsylvania, Lewis implied that Florence Griffith Joyner, the world record-holder in the 100 and 200 meters and the winner of three gold medals and a silver at the Seoul Olympics, uses anabolic steroids and that one of her former coaches, whom he did not identify, was responsible for her reliance on the drugs.

Griffith Joyner was coached by Bob Kersee of the World Class Athletic Club in Westwood until last summer, when she began training herself in Van Nuys with the aid of her husband, Al Joyner.

According to the campus newspaper, the Daily Pennsylvanian, Lewis told the students that he knew of Griffith Joyner’s drug use from “some very reliable sources.”

Otherwise, he presented no evidence.

On Tuesday, Lewis apologized. He said that he didn’t realize that his comments in Philadelphia were being taped by a student reporter.

“I do not think it is proper to accuse specific individuals of drug use in the press and have never done so,” he said in a statement read by his manager, Douglas. “I do not have personal knowledge of drug use by Florence Griffith Joyner or Bob Kersee. If my comments were construed that way, I am sorry.”

Griffith Joyner could not be reached for comment, but presumably she would have responded in the same manner as she did when confronted with similar innuendo in Seoul. Not only did she say then that she never has used steroids or other drugs on the IOC’s banned list, she volunteered to take tests administered by the U.S. Olympic Committee anytime, anywhere for the rest of her career.

For that gesture, she was applauded by the USOC’s chief medical officer, Dr. Robert Voy. All that she needed to present in her defense were the results of the six drug tests she had taken last summer, all of which were pronounced clean by various governing bodies.

Nevertheless, the rumors persist. They were so pervasive in Seoul that an IOC spokeswoman began a news conference by saying that Griffith Joyner’s tests had proved negative. That was the first time that the IOC has felt compelled to announce that an athlete had not been found guilty of using drugs.

This sort of careless speculation is extremely damaging to athletes as individuals, as was stated so eloquently by Lewis in his complaints to The Times 5 years ago.

During the Seoul Olympics, Joaquim Cruz, a Brazilian middle-distance runner, implied in a television interview that Griffith Joyner and her sister-in-law, heptathlon and long jump gold medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee, used drugs. He said that Griffith Joyner looked like a man and that Joyner Kersee looked like a gorilla.

So upset was Griffith Joyner when she saw the interview that she cried herself to sleep. Al Joyner said that he feared her performances the next day in the 200 might be adversely affected. She was worried, he said, that further records might invite further allegations.

Apparently, she was able to resolve those concerns. She set world records in the semifinal and the final.

On the same day, Joyner-Kersee sat alone in the stands and brooded while waiting for her event, the long jump, to begin.

“I know I’m not the prettiest woman in the world, but I don’t know why anyone would say something like that about me,” she said when approached by a reporter.

Like her sister-in-law, Joyner-Kersee was able to compose herself in time to win her event.

Instead of returning to the United States triumphantly, however, both have been under a cloud.

But then, so is virtually every athlete and coach in track and field. The more successful they are, the more gossip there is about them. Even before Canada’s Ben Johnson had tested positive for steroids after he won the gold medal with a world-record time in the 100 meters at Seoul, outstanding performances more often were greeted with suspicion than congratulations.

Butch Reynolds’ agent, Brad Hunt, said in Seoul that his client had barely finished his victory lap after running 43.29 seconds in the 400 meters last summer in Zurich, breaking a 22-year-old world record, when a competitor told Reynolds that it was impossible to run that fast without using drugs.

“Are you saying that I’m using drugs?” Reynolds asked.

“No,” the other runner said.

But Reynolds got the message.

Given the competitive nature of athletes, perhaps it’s understandable that many of them are unwilling to accept that they can be beaten by another athlete who is not using drugs. No doubt some athletes who are on drugs believe they can be beaten only by athletes who are on stronger drugs.

But, unfortunately for the sport, the perception that it is impossible to win and set records cleanly has become accepted as reality by much of the public. Organizers of the annual indoor meet in Toronto, who already were experiencing financial difficulty because of decreased interest in track, said that the Johnson scandal made it impossible for them to sell it to a sponsor for this winter. They canceled the meet.

No one in the sport is so naive as to not recognize that it has a drug problem. Some respected athletes, such as Edwin Moses, say that as many as 50% of world-class track and field athletes use performance-enhancing drugs.

For that reason, sports officials throughout the world are discussing means to combat the problem. With the support of its athletes’ advisory council, The Athletics Congress, which governs track and field in the United States, proposed a plan last week that would make the 25 top performers in each event liable for testing at random during training. Track athletes now are tested only after competition.

Since the 1987 World Championships in Rome, when he spoke out against drug-enhanced performances in an interview with a British television network, Lewis has been one of the movement’s leaders.

Again on Tuesday, in the statement read by Douglas, Lewis said: “I have consistently stated that there is a serious problem of performance-enhancing drugs in track and field. We need an independent agency to test athletes randomly in and out of competition.”

If Lewis had been so restrained in Philadelphia, no one would have had a problem with his comment.

But unsubstantiated allegations do no one any good.

If, on the other hand, Lewis or other athletes have evidence, they should take it to the proper authorities. Better yet, bring it to us. We’re in the business of printing news.