http://www.standard.co.uk/olympics/olympics-sport/carl-lewis-usain-bolt-wont-match-me-and-retain-his-sprint-title-in-london-7807560.html#.T_9S5zxNu0M.emailCarl Lewis: Usain Bolt won’t match me and retain his sprint title in London
Richard Moore
31 May 2012 11:03 AM Carl Lewis claims Usain Bolt will struggle to match his own feat of defending the 100m Olympic title.
The American is the only man to do so – winning gold in 1984 and 1988 – and is unconvinced of Bolt’s enduring legacy.
“It’s very rare to repeat success,” said Lewis. “To win two Olympic 100m titles, nobody else has ever done it. History defines the greatest. You need longevity and consistency. I had an 18-year career.”
Ben Johnson, who initially beat Lewis across the line to win 100m gold in Seoul before being exposed as a drugs cheat, is also begrudging about the Jamaican, even claiming that he could match Bolt’s times if he was running today.
“I was 50 years ahead of my time,” he said. “Bolt now is doing stuff I was capable of. What he’s running on, these fast tracks they’re building now, I could have run.”
While speaking to Johnson and Lewis, which I did for my forthcoming book, The Dirtiest Race In History, about Seoul, it was impossible not to notice that both are preoccupied by Bolt.
Asked to assess the Jamaican’s amazing times, Lewis said enigmatically: “Time will tell!”
Johnson and Lewis despised one another. In contrast, Bolt and his rivals seem almost close. When Justin Gatlin, the 2004 Olympic 100m champion, suggested Bolt might be beatable, Bolt prefixed his response with: “I don’t want to sound rude.”
Johnson and Lewis had no such qualms. “My intention is to kick his butt,” said Johnson on the eve of their showdown in Seoul.
Gatlin said “great competition” will keep the public more interested than a continuation of “the Usain Bolt show”, and on this, at least, Lewis agrees. “You need rivalries,” said the nine-time Olympic gold medallist. “I understood the importance of that. And I worked it.”
The 100m was damaged in Seoul, and, with other drugs cheats exposed in the intervening years, including Gatlin and Britain’s 1992 champion Linford Christie, an air of suspicion surrounds whoever claims to be the world’s fastest man. This presents “a challenge” in selling the sport, said Lewis.
Johnson, who used steroids for seven years, said: “The 100m is still tainted. No doubt about that. That’s the way it is. The more money you put on the table, the more tainted.”
Even in the modern era, with improved testing?
“Different era, different time zone, same thing. Same 100m. Everybody wants to be the fastest man.”
The Dirtiest Race in History: Ben Johnson, Carl Lewis and the 1988 Olympic 100m Final (Wisden Sports Writing), £18.99, published June 7.
