Fast, not nice...

His jaundiced eyes blazing, his Stanozolol-fueled muscles glinting in the sun, nineteen years ago today Ben Johnson won the men's Olympic 100m final in Seoul. His time was an astonishing 9.79 seconds, a new world record that broke the 9.83 mark that he had set the previous year at the World Championships in Rome. To give you an idea of just how fast that time was, if it had stood on the books, it would still today be the fastest time in Olympic history (equalled only by Donovan Bailey at the Atlanta Games in '96).


Of course, Johnson's time did not stand. Three days after winning what many considered to be the greatest 100m race in history, he was stripped of his gold medal due to a urine sample showing high levels of anabolic steroids, most notably stanozolol. It was the biggest Olympic drug scandal ever, and it inaugurated a new era of drug awareness and paranoia at the highest levels of track and field competition. Even now in Olympic circles, the 1988 Games are referred to as "The Drug Games" and Ben Johnson's eerie yellow-eyed stare remains the hallmark memory of Seoul. (To view the print above, go to the artwork section of our store, and below check out the above side and front camera angles of the infamous race - shit is unbelievable.)