ELItorial: Flojo can't outrun Johnson's legacy

By David Goldenberg

In 1988, two athletes set world records and won Olympic championships in the same event: the 100-meter dash. Now, only 10 years later, one is dead and the other is a sideshow. Florence Griffith-Joyner and Ben Johnson, who together managed to bring track back into prime time, have had at once very similar and very different lives.

Joyner, or Flojo as she is often called, was voted Sports Illustrated Sportswoman of the Year in 1988 and went on to lead the Presidential Council on Fitness and design her own line of clothing. Johnson, meanwhile, has been banned for life from competing on the track. This punishment came after repeated drug test failures at the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul, which earned him a two-year suspension from the sport--and then in 1993 during a comeback attempt.

While he still trains everyday and dreams of competing in the 2000 Olympic games in Sydney, the closest thing Johnson can get to competition these days is a circus-like charity event on Thurs., Oct. 15 in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island which had him pitted against a racecar and horses. Johnson is currently trying to appeal the Canadian Supreme Court for reinstatement. His last appeal, on Mon., Sept. 21, fell upon deaf ears before a panel of judges in Toronto.

But if you asked a sports aficionado to describe either Griffith-Joyner or Johnson, you might get this response: "A black, muscular track star whose life was probably ruined by performance-enhancing drugs."

Why should Flojo, who passed her drug tests, be grouped with a loser like Johnson? Simple: she was muscular and black and just happens to own some world records. That she died under unusual circumstances at the young age of 38 prompted many to assume that her body could no longer take the stress that years of steroid use had caused.

Even though the autopsy revealed that her death probably had nothing to do with drugs, many still refuse to believe that her perfect body was the result of hard work and not injections. She shattered the world records in both the 100- and 200-meter races, and, until this year, no one had even come close to matching her. Raised in a society so used to disappointment from its athletes, many people were and still are hesitant to believe that Flojo was the real deal. Apparently, we can no longer accept great achievements for what they are.

"The great shame in Griffith-Joyner's death," ESPN.com columnist Tom Farrey wrote, "is that we'll never be able to know with confidence what to think of her staggering records. She retired right before random testing began, at the peak of her career." He added, "Oddly, the best thing that could have happened to Griffith-Joyner's legacy was if...some other sprinter had matched her marks by now." Farrey seems to think that the only way a great athlete of an age before random drug testing can be legitimized is if someone else equals their feat. "We are all human beings and we all make mistakes in life," Johnson once said. "Everyone is doing the same thing. I'm just the one being blamed." While he probably knows more about the intricacies of the sports world than an outsider, Johnson has no right to feed upon the public's mistrust of athletes to try to forward his position.

USA Track and Field Executive Director Craig Masback, in defense of Flojo, said. "No one can achieve greatness without being under suspicion." At least not anymore.

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