Athletics is considered the queen of sports, and the 100-metre sprint is the main event at this prestigious tournament. Becoming the fastest man on the planet is the dream of any runner and has been since antiquity. Sprinters are praised and adored, but sometimes there is only a step between love and hate.
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Seoul 1988 was the scene of a thrilling confrontation in the 100-metre race. It was a thriller that divided the world into two camps: the American Carl Lewis, who had won four golds at the Olympics four years earlier, and the unpredictable Jamaican Ben Johnson. For all the canons of drama, they were complete opposites: the tall and graceful Lewis with his long strides against the compact and energetic Johnson, who accelerated instantly. The year before, Ben Johnson had sensationally won the World Championships in Rome, beating Lewis by 0.01 seconds. The race at the Olympics was to be the climax of their rivalry.
The sound of the gun going off, the start, and for the first 30 metres, Lewis is ahead. But Johnson picks up the pace in fifth gear and takes the lead—9.79! A mind-boggling time that will blow your mind. Lewis watches the champion’s back as he sets off on his lap of honour. The seconds still boggle the mind. But that’s only the first part of the drama.
Johnson was an outstanding sprinter for exactly 72 hours until the results of his doping sample came out. A high concentration of the steroid stanozolol was found in his blood. In one minute, Ben Johnson lost all his medals and records. He later admitted that he had used banned substances for the past six years, but always managed to get them out of his system before competing. At the Olympics, he followed the same strategy of not taking anything banned six weeks before the Games, so he was sure he had been doped in Seoul. However, the level of the banned substance in his blood was critical to his health.
In the 80s and 90s, doping in athletics reached its peak. At this time, medicine was just beginning to develop methods of detecting banned substances, while pharmacists were already ahead of them in this area. Remarkably, seven of the eight athletes who competed in that final were subsequently linked to doping scandals, but it was Ben Johnson who suffered the greatest consequences.
A man or not?
Now let’s discuss the situation with the Paris Olympics. Unfortunately, we live in a time when it is necessary to check a person not only for bad intentions but also by gender. At least, this is the impression we get from the current games.
The situation has heated up in boxing, a sport that is famous for its traditions and history. However, even here, everything is not so unambiguous. In the 1/8 finals of the tournament, Italian Angela Carini entered the ring and met with Algeria’s Iman Khelif.
The Italian, after 46 seconds of the fight, appealed to the referee with a complaint about “too many blows,” as a result of which the fight was stopped. The Russian media actively discussed the situation, claiming that it was actually a man against a woman. Indeed, Khelif was recently found to have elevated testosterone levels in a doping test, and her height has also raised questions.
However, it is important to note that Helif has always competed in women’s events, and elevated testosterone may be unusual but not uncommon in women. In men, on the other hand, testosterone levels can decline, sometimes leading to the prescription of hormone medication. Helif’s case is related to what is known as Swyer syndrome.
