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The parts in my system didn't even have a performance
enhancing quality
Carl Lewis
Nine-time
Olympic champion Carl Lewis has refuted suggestions
that he ever took performance enhancing drugs
during his career.
Last
year it was revealed that Lewis failed a drugs
test in 1988, the same year that Ben Johnson won
the Olympic 100m in Seoul.
Lewis
said that he had never deliberately or knowingly
taken drugs, and that he could not be compared
to Johnson, who was stripped of his gold medal
having tested positive for steroids.
"We're
talking about a deliberate taking of steroids,
which people do to enhance performance - I was
just taking a herbal remedy," he told BBC
Grandstand's Steve Cram.
"I
think that people said 'Aha - Carl Lewis has been
caught'.
"They
wanted that smoking gun, but the parts that were
in my system were so low that it didn't even have
a performance enhancing quality at all.
"It
wouldn't have even been close, Ben was out taking
steroids and obviously we know what the intention
is of that.
"There's
no question out there that people want to say:
'Carl Lewis is a cheater, he did it and he's just
like Ben', and all that and that's fine.
"It
just amazes me that people try to make that comparison."
Story
from BBC SPORT:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/sport1/hi/athletics/3941145.stm
Published:
2004/08/01 17:16:12 GMT
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BBC MMIV
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