At 22:06 3/09/00 -0700, A.J. Craddock wrote:
>I see nothing there about Flo-Jo.
>
>Where is it?
>
>Tony Craddock
>
Sorry about that, bad cutting and pasting on my part
try:
http://www.olympics.smh.com.au/athletics/2000/09/04/FFX3FIA2KCC.html
Story is below
Flo-Jo's doctor believes the world's fastest woman was a drug cheat
10:48AM, Sep 04
A granite slab etched with a black-and-white photograph marks her resting
place in El Toro Memorial Park. Flo-Jo, who died aged 38 in September 1998,
is the fastest women who ever lived: the holder of two world records for
the 100m and 200m that may never be beaten.
Yet just 11 days before the Sydney Games, there is open speculation that
Florence Griffith Joyner used drugs. An investigation by British newspaper
The Sunday Telegraph has added further fuel to suspicions, with a coach
speaking of her drug use, and Dr Robert Kerr, a sports injuries specialist
who treated her, telling of his conviction that she was a cheat.
According to fellow athletes, coaches, doctors and officials, Flo-Jo was
on banned drugs before she won three gold medals and a silver in the 1988
Seoul Olympics.
Two years earlier Flo-Jo, who won silver in the 100m at the 1984 Los
Angeles Games, was on the wane. Disillusioned with athletics, she stopped
training in 1986 and gained almost 30kg. A year later husband Al Joyner
became her coach.
Her subsequent transformation shook athletics. Flo-Jo went from being
outside the top 10 in 1987 to smashing the world 100m record in Olympic
qualifying the next year, with a time of 10.49s.
In Seoul, she won the 100m in a wind-assisted Olympic record time and set
a world record for the 200m - 21.34s. She also won a gold medal in the
4x100m relay and silver in the 4x400m relay.
Her times, however, were not all that had changed. Her physique had
altered beyond recognition. She had bulging muscles and huge veins.
Observers said her voice was deeper and her jaw had elongated, known
side-effects of the banned human growth hormone (hGH).
Then Flo-Jo, who explained her rapid improvement on everything from her
new diet to doing up to 5,000 sit-ups a day, surprised the world by
retiring in February 1989, just months before the introduction of mandatory
out-of-competition drug testing. In the past, the only person to make
public allegations against Flo-Jo based on first-hand evidence was Darrell
Robinson, a former US 400m runner who claimed he had supplied her with hGH.
She dismissed him as a "liar", but did not sue and he stands by his claims.
Now, others connected to Flo-Jo have spoken out. Kerr, who treated Flo-Jo
for an ankle injury, said: "From the combination of her physical appearance
and her increased performance, I believe she was on drugs."
Kerr should know: before steroids were outlawed in 1975, he prescribed
them to many athletes.
Even more explicit was the evidence of a leading coach, who said he had
been told by a woman athlete who trained with Flo-Jo before the 1988
Olympics that she took hGH and other steroids, but did not like to inject
herself.
"Each girl thought she was the only one injecting Flo-Jo but, in fact,
they all were and so she was multiplying her doses," he said.
Other athletes had told him Flo-Jo used drugs from 1981.
Pat Connolly, a former US athlete turned coach, said she was also
convinced of Flo-Jo's drug abuse but claimed US officials had not wanted to
catch their top athletes, preferring them to win drug-assisted than lose.
"I don't think Flo-Jo is to blame as much as the establishment that
allowed her and others to get away with it," she said.
Her views have been echoed by Dr Robert Voy, the chief medical officer of
the US Olympic Committee for five years until 1988, who claimed his work
was constantly undermined. At the weekend Voy said: "Many people at USOC
were in the business for one reason: to bring home gold. Just how the
athletes accomplished that, few cared."
Voy said positive test results were hushed up. He believes that if
Canadian Ben Johnson had been American, he would never have been caught in
Seoul.
He told of a discus thrower being unconcerned when he failed a drugs test:
the results were never made public and weeks later he won a medal at a
championship. "It seems that nothing has changed today," he said.
Al Joyner has continued to deny his late wife took performance enhancing
drugs.
The Sunday Telegraph, London
André Sammartino
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