Ben Johnson's Sprint from Gold to Dope

Ben Johnson was famous for the power of his start, Carl Lewis for the pace of his finish. It was the American's speed over the last 50m that had allowed him to beat Johnson in eight of their first nine meetings, between 1980 and 1985, repeatedly overhauling the Canadian in the closing stages. But in 1986 that had started to change, and by the time they raced in Rome at the 1987 world championships, Johnson had won five of their preceding six races. At the Stadio Olimpico, Johnson had reacted to the starter's pistol in the scarcely credible time of 0.129sec; no longer with an advantage over the second half of the race Carl Lewis, who took 0.193, was beaten before he took his first step.

So it was that Johnson approached the 1988 Olympic final in optimistic mood. "When the gun go off, the race be over," he predicted, and so it proved. On this occasion the reaction times were much closer – Johnson moved in 0.132sec, Lewis in 0.136 – but instead of catching up, Lewis continued to fall behind. Splitting the race into 10m segments, the 1984 champion only started to run faster than his rival between the 80m and the 90m mark, and even then there was just a hundredth of a second in it. Johnson had produced the greatest performance in the history of sprinting, and he had the time – 9.79sec – to prove it.

But he was not alone in performing on the big occasion: for the first time ever, four men finished the same race in under 10 seconds. After watching Johnson complete his victory, single finger raised high in celebration, the Guardian's Chris Brasher acclaimed "the greatest sprint race in history". And it was enjoyed most of all in Canada, who had last won an athletics gold medal in 1932. This success tasted all the better for coming at the expense of Lewis, widely seen as the living embodiment of American arrogance. The prime minister, Brian Mulroney, telephoned Johnson live on Canadian television to thank him for "a marvellous evening for Canada". The Toronto Star's headline the next day read "Ben Johnson – a national treasure".