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Lewis: ‘Who cares I failed drug test?’

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Duncan Mackay
The Guardian, Wednesday 23 April 2003 20.51 EDT
Carl Lewis has broken his silence on allegations that he was the beneficiary of a drugs cover-up, admitting he had tested positive for banned substances but claiming he was just one of “hundreds” of American athletes who were allowed to escape bans.

“There were hundreds of people getting off,” he said. “Everyone was treated the same.”

Lewis has now acknowledged that he failed three tests during the 1988 US Olympic trials, which under international rules at the time should have prevented him from competing in the Seoul games two months later.

The admission is a further embarrassment for the United States Olympic Committee, which had initially denied claims that 114 positive tests between 1988 and 2000 were covered up. It will add weight to calls by leading anti-doping officials and top athletes for an independent inquiry into the US’s record on drug issues.

Last week Dr Wade Exum alleged that a ban imposed on Lewis after positive tests for three stimulants had been overturned by the USOC when the athlete said he had ingested them mistakenly in a herbal supplement.

Lewis received only a warning after officials ruled that his positive tests were due to “inadvertent” use. Some scientists believe the substances could have been a masking agent for more serious drugs, such as anabolic steroids.

“The climate was different then,” said Lewis. “Over the years a lot of people will sit around and debate that [the drug] does something. There really is no pure evidence to show that it does something. It does nothing.”

Lewis, who was arrested in Los Angeles on Monday for suspected drink-driving which friends say was the result of depression over Exum’s revelations, won the 100 metres gold medal in the 1988 Seoul Olympics after Canada’s Ben Johnson was stripped of the title when he tested positive for a steroid.

Lewis also won the long jump and finished second in the 200m behind his training partner Joe DeLoach, also named by Exum as having escaped a ban.

Johnson has now demanded that Lewis be stripped of his medals from Seoul, although the International Olympic Committee has no plans to review the situation because it has a statute of limitation set at three years.

“Do you expect him to say anything different?” said Lewis. “I mean we’re talking about Ben Johnson. Come on. Let’s be realistic.”

Lewis, 41, said he was not concerned about the uproar around the world caused by the revelations. “It’s ridiculous. Who cares?” he said. “I did 18 years of track and field and I’ve been retired five years, and they’re still talking about me, so I guess I still have it.”

Moscow is to launch its bid for the 2012 Olympic Games by staging the richest meeting in athletics history, offering a $1m (£630,000) purse to anyone who breaks the 100m world record.

Britain’s Dwain Chambers will join the United States’ world record holder Tim Montgomery and the Olympic and world champion Maurice Greene in an event in which the winner is guaranteed $500,000, nearly 10 times what the gold medallist in the world championships in Paris will earn. Nine other events, including the triple jump in which Jonathan Edwards is expected to compete, will split a prize purse of $3.5m.

Organisers are predicting a sell-out crowd of 85,000 at the meeting on September 20 in the Luzhniki Stadium, the arena for the 1980 Olympics and the centrepiece of Moscow’s bid for the 2012 games, for which its rivals are expected to include London.

The event is being staged with the assistance of Stellar, the British-based management company headed by the former European 200m champion John Regis. “Moscow wants to show it can put on the best meeting in the world to help promote their Olympic bid,” said Stellar’s Mark Brodie. “It’s going to be spectacular.”

HOLA TO DI DJ WHEY DEH A JAIL AND EVERY WEEK HIM A COME A ROAD AND ROAD CYA SI HIM ….HOLA SIR…HOW IS YOU DOING? YUH BABY MADDA DOING FINE DEM SEH SHE HAPPY NUH !@#$%% ……HAYYYYYYYY DI PEOPLE DEM SEH WHEN DI POLICE PUT ON DI BANGLE …BABY MADDA FREE PAPER LET RITE OUT AND WALK OUT….WHEN DEM RETURN DI TINGS DEM WHEY DAY ….WAIT MEK A SEH HOLA TO SHE TUH…HOLA BABY MOTHER………….OKAY DEN…YES DEM SEH WHEN POLICE RETURN DI TINGS DEM BABY MADDA ASK DEM IF DAS ALL BECAUSE A SOME MONEY SHE WANT HAR WARDROBE WELL SHORT AND SHE NEED FI GO SORT OUT SOME CLOTHES..BABY MADDA NEVA HAPPY WHEN HIM DEH A ROAD SO NOW DAT DI BARS A HOLD HIM SHE DEH PAN ONE PIECE A CELEBRATING…PARTY ALL KIP A HIM YAWD AND BAY TINGS………DI PEOPLE DEM SEH DI LIQUOR NEVA NUFF DOE ..SUH NOW MI GET A LIKLE NEWS BOUT HAR YESSIDEH AND MI CYAA CONFIRM IT BUT AFTAH SOME INVESTIGATION AND HOLA-ING MI HAFFI GO DASH IT YASSO FI SI IF ONE A UNNO CAN CONFIRM IT…DI PEOPLE DEM SEH SHE MIGHT HAVE CAUGHT A SWELLING…DEM NOT SURE IF A BEHIND DI BARS BECAUSE BUN MUS A RUN BEKAW SHE CUDDEN STAN HIM…ALL DI SONG WHEY A SING DEM SEH WHEN SHE SI HIM SHE CROSS LIKE WHEN SMADDY PAY CHECK MISSING..BUT SHE VERY HAPPY NOW WID HIM BEHIND DI FENCE BECAUSE SHE CAN DO DI TINGS DEM…good mawnin

(NEWSER) – US Olympic great Carl Lewis says Jamaica needs to toughen its drug policy before he’ll take Usain Bolt’s sprinting feats seriously. “I think there are some issues,” Lewis tells Sports Illustrated. “No one is accusing anyone. But don’t live by a different rule and expect the same kind of respect.” Unlike the US, Jamaica does not have a random drug-testing program.

“For someone to run 10.03 one year and 9.69 the next, if you don’t question that … you’re a fool. Period,” said Lewis, adding that were he dominating today, he would expect to be questioned. Lewis was offended, he added, when a top track official said Bolt’s performances were more impressive than Lewis’. “For him to make that judgment is wrong,” says Lewis. “He should talk about Usain on his own merits.”

WHAT JOHN JOHN BUDDY MADE OF ?

Dear Taiwo,

I need someone to tell me if I did anything wrong. Many people would cause problems for themselves and turn around to blame others for their misfortune, such is Sanmi in his present predicament.

The Lord knows that I have no hand in whatever is happening to him now. I decided to write Heartcopy so that you can advise me on what to do.

Secondly, I wish to let the public know my predicament.In case anything happens to me, my family and the public will know where it has come from and who to hold responsible for it. I have had enough of Sanmi. Initially he was begging me, now he has resorted to threatening me, since I have no hand in his predicament.

I met sanmi, some 15 years ago. I was just getting over a failed relationship. A relationship I was in for over five years which I and everybody who knew Kenny and I felt would lead us to the altar, but unfortunately, another woman who was smarter than I took him.

I never knew Kenny was up to anything when he , all of a sudden, after over four years into our relationship, demanded that I must be pregnant before we get married. I was making efforts to get pregnant when his mother asked to see me and gave me the shock of my life. She informed me that Kenny impregnated another lady he had been dating before he met me.

Whether true or false, all my efforts to see him after his mother spoke with me were futile, he refused to see me. I later heard that they got married. I met Sanmi when he had just lost his job and a huge amount of money to fraudsters. He was in a mess and we started by consoling each other.

I met him at the office of the estate agent who manages my father’s estate. He happened to be the one in charge of Sanmi’s accommodation. Apparently, he had outstanding bills to settle and he had been asked to vacate the building.

In the process, we started dating and few months into our relationship, I asked him to move in with me. I resided in one of my father’s houses in Surulere, with the belief that together we could make things work and since he said he loved me and there was no other woman in his life, we could get married later.

I thought I could use my father’s contact to secure a job for him, but it took longer than I thought. All the while that he didn’t have a job, there was nothing I could not do for him; I took good care of him and bought good clothes for him. At a particular period of time, my father and younger brother expressed their fears about him, but I assured them that I Itrusted him.

My assurance, however made my father to step in and helped him to secure some contracts which started Sanmi off. I think I should let you know that my younger brother and I were raised by our father. Our mother died when we were still very young. Daddy did not marry another wife, he raised us alone, this is why we are all very close and remained one.

At about the time Sanmi started executing small scale contracts that was bringing little money his way; I encouraged him to save as I was making good money from running my father’s business. My father fell ill, my brother who lived with him in his Ikoyi home was out of the country and since I couldn’t go to stay with him, I encouraged him to come and stay with Sanmi and I for some time, I was happy because, I felt both of them would get to know each other better and he could keep my father company, because we have been able to identify that one of daddy’s problem was loneliness.

On a fateful day, when I returned from work and Sanmi stepped out to pick some toiletries from the store, my father told me that he did not really like him and that he suspected that Sanmi had something to do with a young girl who lived close to my house. This young girl had just completed her secondary education and she used to come over and play with me, and sometimes help me with chores around the house.

I appreciated my father’s concern and worry, but I calmed him down and told him there was nothing to fear as I trusted Sanmi and that he was relating with the girl because he knew her through me.

I never knew I was living in a fool’s paradise. Not long after when my father went back to his house, Sanmi told me that he needed some money to execute a contract a friend brought to him. Because of the trust I had in him and wanted him to succeed, I did not even ask him for the details, I gave him the money. He asked for two million naira and I gave it to him, then, it was a huge amount of money but I really didn’t mind.

Little did I know that Sanmi had impregnated this young lady, Mopelola and he had planned to marry her. He collected money from me to rent an apartment and settle down with Mopelola. I heard about this two months after Sanmi collected the money from me on the pretence that Mopelolas elder sister was getting married. All the while, Sanmi would leave the house with the pretext that he was out of town on business.

I never knew that he had rented an apartment two streets away from mine and he was always there with Mopelola and her family. But I however noted that Sanmi would always return home very late in the night from his supposed trip and would leave early in the morning.

I even learnt that Sanmi’s parents came from Kogi State to be a part of the wedding ceremony; they stayed in the apartment he rented.

Two days to the wedding, I came home from work early because I had malaria. After resting a while, I asked my stylist who incidentally was Mopelola’s neighbour to come to the house to fix my hair. She was the one who told me everything Sanmi felt he could do and get away with.

She jokingly asked if I wanted to fix my hair for the wedding. I told her I wasn’t invited, that though I learnt that Mopelola’s sister was getting married but I wasn’t invited. She didn’t think twice before telling me that I shouldn’t pull her legs that Mopelola my baby as they all fondly called her was pregnant for Sanmi my supposed cousin and they are getting married because the girl had been warned in her Cherubim and Seraphim Church never to commit an abortion and that she must marry the first man who slept with her.

I was shocked and dumbfounded. She went on to inform me that Sanmi had rented an apartment two streets away and wedding plans were really underway. In her excitement, she did not stop reeling out the details despite my silence not knowing that all she was telling me was almost killing me. I really didn’t know how I survived and kept my sanity until she left. When she did, I called a friend who knew all about Sanmi and I, she suggested that we should get him arrested. It then occurred to me to check Sanmis clothes in the wardrobe. Then, I discovered that most of his clothes were gone. I informed my father and he came in company of my aunty.

He advised that I should not do anything. In fact, I had to leave the enviroment on the wedding day and moved back to my father’s house in Ikoyi. It was painful; I almost would not have been able to cope if not with the help of my relatives.

To the glory of God, two years after that, I found my own husband a man who though a lot older than me, loved and cared for my two kids I untill he died last year. I tried to forget Sanmi and what he did to me. I never even asked for the money he borrowed from me. Inspite of his betrayal I moved on and I am doing well.

I was however, surprised when he paid me a visit in my office in Febuary this year, I don’t know how he tracedwas able to locate me. His mission was to plead with me to forgive him. I told him that he has been forgiven a long time ago. He narrated all his tale of woes, I told him to leave and even prayed that all would be well with him.

He came two times after the first visit asking that I borrow him money. I told him I didn’t have money. He stopped coming after this until I heard recently all the talks he had been spreading that I used his glory and those of his dead children diabolically to make money.

I learnt few weeks ago that he had lost three out of his four children, wealth and even his dignity as a man. He now resorted to threatening me. I don’t know what I have in common with him.

I have made up my mind to report him to the police, but my father said I should ignore him. There is a limit to human endurance; please, should I do it my way, get the police involved or just ignore him?

Adeola.