Slaughter in Seoul: The truths and lies you should know as you watch Rio 2016

Disgraced drugs cheat Ben Johnson creates a framed footprint on a running track at the Seoul Olympic Stadium on September 24, 2013, 25 years to the day of his steroid-assisted 100m final victory. The Canadian sprinter revisited the site of his stunning triumph and downfall to bring an anti-doping message for a sport still struggling to rid itself of banned substance use. PHOTO | AFP

What you need to know:

  • Since the skullduggery called doping has persistently cast a long shadow over this year’s competition, the best initiation for anyone who is planning to watch these Rio Games is the 2012 documentary, The Race That Shocked the World.
  • This is the story of the eight men who ran in the final of the 100m at the 1988 Seoul Olympics; a story about how that race changed their lives forever. 
  • The Race that Shocked the World doesn’t just open you up to the rigours of athletics training, the vested interests of coaches and the politics of drug testing. It reminds us that understanding the making of champions requires dedicated research and clever story-telling.

The 2016 Olympic Games are upon us, and from Russia to Kenya and back again, talk of doping athletes is rife.

10,500 athletes will be competing in 28 sports for 306 gold medals. We can prepare for this 17-day treat in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil by reading How to Watch the Olympics. This mini-encyclopedia by David Goldblatt and Johnny Acton details the history and culture of each sport on offer in Rio. It is a witty account of rules, scores, skills, strategy, heroes and, yes, skullduggery! 

Since the skullduggery called doping has persistently cast a long shadow over this year’s competition, the best initiation for anyone who is planning to watch these Rio Games is the 2012 documentary, The Race That Shocked the World. This is the story of the eight men who ran in the final of the 100m at the 1988 Seoul Olympics; a story about how that race changed their lives forever. 

The director, Daniel Gordon, digs into the back story of each one of those eight men. He tells the bigger story of mentors and incentives; coaches and doctors; national sports policies — official and unofficial.  

At the centre of this tale of triumph and tragedy stands Ben Johnson of Canada. Johnson was something of a miracle baby born in rural Jamaica in December 1961. At the age of 14, he moved to Canada in search of better opportunities. Confronted by bullies in the school yard who laughed at his accent and his general “otherness”, Johnson responded by inviting them to a running duel. He won every single time and silenced those bullies forever. 

OVERNIGHT HERO

There can never be a Ben Johnson story without the story of his arch rival, Carl Lewis of the USA. The two were as different as night and day. Six months older than Johnson, the fast-talking Lewis grew up in a family of athletes. His parents ran a track club. Thanks to the efforts of his father — William Lewis — Carl had broken several long jump records at high school, well before he met coach Tom Tellez at the University of Houston.

By the early 1980s, Carl Lewis was a multitalented jewel in the long jump, 200m, 100m and 100m relay for team USA. In his spare time, Lewis tried to cut another kind of record. He taped the song, Going for Gold in 1986 and announced that he had retained the legendary producer, Quincy Jones to oversee another two songs.

Lewis was utterly condescending of the Canadian track star. He described Johnson as a “guy from a small country, doesn’t speak well ... he just wasn’t that good. We were not worried about him because he just didn’t have the core talent”. In truth, Johnson had a rare and enviable start off the blocks. He shot off in a flash of electric speed. His problem was endurance — the strength to keep on accelerating all the way to the finishing tape. 

Lewis and Johnson encountered each other many times over on the global athletics circuit, including at the World Championships. The media relished their rivalry. Johnson had a quiet disdain for Lewis, whom he thought of as “cocky, a bit of a show-off… he can’t sing, he’s a runner, stick to that”. 

For both men, the Olympics was the most coveted prize. At the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, Lewis whipped Johnson and took the gold. But the next three years belonged to Ben Johnson. With the help of coach Charlie Francis, Johnson conquered his strength and endurance problems. At the 1987 World Championships in Rome, Johnson achieved a new world record in the 100m — 9.93 seconds.  Overnight, he became a Canadian hero, worshipped by school children, revered as a living example of the validity of every immigrant’s dream and sought after for commercial endorsements by several companies including Diadora and Mazda. 

But with an injury just six weeks before the 1988 Olympics, could Johnson repeat this feat and was he ready for the vengeance that was Carl Lewis? Lewis was desperate for another 100m gold medal to replace the 1984 one that he gave away in an emotive moment. It happened in May 1987, at his father’s burial. Carl reached into the coffin and placed the medal in his father’s right hand. When his mother asked him what he was doing, he answered, “don’t worry, mum, I will win it back next year”. So for Lewis, a win in Seoul wasn’t just mandatory, it was sacred.         

Beside Lewis, Johnson was looking at a good number of equally driven world class athletes in the heats and the semis. And then came the final. Seoul, September 24, 1988: The showdown. Lane 1, Robson da Silva of Brazil. Lane 2, Ray Stewart of Jamaica. Lane 3, Carl Lewis. Lane 4, Linford Christie of United Kingdom. Lane 5, Calvin Smith of USA. Lane 6, Ben Johnson. Lane 7, Desai Williams of Canada. Lane 8, Denis Mitchell of USA.

RUNNING ON EMPTY

The race that would shock the world had just started. This documentary captures the 10 seconds of that race with such dynamic camerawork. You see it from every conceivable angle, in a variety of modern digital techniques — rapid takes, slow motion, re-runs, close-ups, the works! 

But even more exciting than this penetrating cinematography are the interviews with each of the eight men who ran that race. What were they thinking as the gun went off to announce the start of the race? What kind of pressures did they feel? How had their respective childhoods prepared them for this moment when Johnson ran an incredible 9:79? Beside these deeply personal takes of human endeavour and desire, and the drama that followed Johnson’s victory stands the big question: was steroid use endemic in the 1980s and was Ben Johnson the fall guy?

To answer this question, the film director, Daniel Gordon, goes back to the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games. I am not going to spoil it for you. Watch it. Pay close attention to Carl Lewis’s dental braces and the interviews with Russ Rogers the US 1988 Olympic Coach, John Hoberman, Historian of Sports Doping and Dr. Don Catlin, Director UCLA Olympic Lab 1983-1984. Dr. Catlin’s closing words are particularly chilling: “I was curious.

How many things did we miss in 1984? And I had, for whatever reason, kept (samples) in the refrigerator …tested 102 samples according to modern methods we could see drugs… we did see more than we saw in 1984. And then I thought, better not to do this. We are seeing too much!...”.

The Race that Shocked the World doesn’t just open you up to the rigours of athletics training, the vested interests of coaches and the politics of drug testing. It reminds us that understanding the making of champions requires dedicated research and clever story-telling.

Who has really told the story of Kenya’s Olympics champions? In 2005, the Swiss journalist, Jurg Wirz, released Paul Tergat: Running to the Limit: His Life and His Training Secrets. The following year, Wirz published Run to Win: The Training Secrets of the Kenyan Runners. The story of the first Kenyan to win a marathon at the Olympics has been fairly captured by Frits Conijn, a Dutch journalist, in the book, Running on Empty: Life and Triumphs of Samuel Kamau Wanjiru (2012).

In the documentary, From Gun to Tape, Jackie Lebo takes a humble-sized bite of David Rudisha and Florence Kiplagat preparing for the 2012 Olympic Games in London. In another Content House documentary, The Last Fight (2015), Roy Gachuhi makes up for the long history of erasure and neglect that we have visited upon Kenyan boxers.

What will we tell the world when Margaret Wambui Nyairera beats Caster Semenya in the women’s 800 metres final in Rio (as I know she can!)? How will our reportage be different from that of the BBC? What inside scoops will we have, what background gem will we feature to account for Nyairera’s abilities and her determination to win?

Beyond fitness training, tactical coaching, PR and marketing, we need to invest in researchers, archivists and biographers to capture the lives of the men and women who give us the pride of belonging, who help to define Kenyan identity globally.