“People know me as Ben Johnson now, except my wife, who insists on calling me Gary. I stuck by him and by his name in the hope that one day he would be cleared. Things have just gone from bad to worse but I’ll keep his name running. I’ll probably take it all the way to the grave.”In the meantime, there are sure to be a few grave looks when the other entrants for the 131st New Year Sprint discover that Ben Johnson will be getting to his mark at Musselburgh race track on 28 December.Kevin’s double troubleIF IT has been a bad week for Ben Johnson (the Canadian Ben Johnson, that is) it has not exactly been a good one for Kevin Keegan – Kevin Keegan of Laurieston, Falkirk, that is. And he has no plans to change it now – even though the more fleet-footed Ben Johnson, already banned for life, has fallen foul of the drug-testing procedure for a third time.”It’s a name I’ve grown used to,” he said the morning after traces of a banned diuretic were found in a urine sample voluntarily given by the former world record holder. He had read in the News of the World about a man changing his name by deed poll to Linda Lusardi.
For 11 years now, the loyal Tynesider, a member of Wallsend Harriers and a floor manager at a Newcastle hotel, has stuck by his assumed identity. Even at his peak, when he stopped the clock at 11.6, he was never quite as quick as his hero – the Ben Johnson who won the 1988 Olympic final in 9.79.
It was in May 1988, four months before big Ben was first struck off the competition list for failing a drugs test, that Gary Smith, as he was known at the time, decided to adopt the same name as the Canadian sprinter. THE DIARY can reveal that Ben Johnson will be challenging for the coveted New Year Sprint title in Edinburgh next month. In an exclusive interview, Johnson revealed that he will be making his debut as a professional runner in the traditional handicap race meeting popularly known as “Powderhall” in recognition of the track where it was held until 1970. “I’ve been training with the `pro’ guys since February,” he said, “and I’ve been going pretty well.
At my age, 35, you stand a better chance running against younger guys with the handicap system.”
And time and the tide appeared to be catching up with Johnson last summer In two comeback races he ran 13.2sec for 100m. And yet he presumed to encroach; suggesting, as many Spanish commentators have inferred, that he committed hara-kiri, that he judged suicide to be nobler and less painful than death by a thousand indignities.John Carlin writes for the Spanish newspaper El Pais. In recent weeks he has been openly – and recurrently – criticising his players, in defiance of the warnings of the mighty Sanz.Criticising, bullying, threatening: this is Sanz’s province Toshack knew this. Toshack’s frustration, his increasing awareness that the responsibility his job carried grotesquely exceeded its power, made him bolshy. Had Anelka simply been omitted, thereby allowing the excellent strike pair of Raul and Morientes to do their stuff uncluttered, and thereby allowing space for an extra man in a notoriously leaky midfield, Real Madrid would very probably be playing with more assurance, in a more settled pattern, four or five places higher up the table.As it is, Toshack’s Real have been unpredictable, disorganised and torn with dressing-room dissent, offering only dim prospects – mathematics aside – of titles this season, either in Europe or in Spain. Bosses elsewhere can sack their employees, and the employees know it, which is why they do as the bosses say. The Real Madrid players, almost all of them, knew that Toshack had no say in determining their futures with the club.
