They came from the Caribbean island of Jamaica. In the mid 1970’s a skinny 15 year old boy immigrated to Toronto, Canada with his mother. How many bad decisions do you think should be forgiven? Quote commentĩ Report REPLY #25 1992ofsaa said 6 years ago Or maybe it is the bad decision he made when he decided to yet again take a banned substance prior to taking a drug test his own team organized in the late 90s?Ĭertainly seems like he has a problem with bad decisions and an inability to learn from those supposed mistakes. Or the one where he decided to cheat again after his initial suspension was over in the early 90s? Which bad decision are we supposed to forgive him for? The one where he initially decided to cheat (and decided to continue taking/injecting banned substances for quite a while? (Not sure why you felt the need to resurrect this thread, but.) I see him as a man who has accepted defeat." "The only person that ben johnson has to answer to is god ! No different than everyone else who to this day 28 years later, STILL refuse to forgive a man for making a bad decision, really ? Know what I think. If Ben Johnson feels it necessary to claim he is the best of all time, then that's all well and dandy, but it really is a hollow statement (whether it's true or not). My point is that, at least in my opinion, it is senseless to make such a comparison. Moreover, why do we as people feel that it's necessary to make a comparison, or even to crown someone "the best ever"? (rhetorical question, I am well enough versed in basic sociology and psychology to understand the actual reasons). The technological advancements and changes in training philosophy (more often than not created by a change in scientific understanding) cannot be quantified. A comparison between athletes of different eras, as far as calibre of athlete is concerned, cannot yield any meaningful insight. Why are all of the pre-"onerace" posts on this thread teetering on the edge between literate and illiterate?Īlso, this is another one of those silly threads, that covers a topic which is completely meaningless. Quote commentģ Report REPLY #10 ilovecollege said 8 years ago The same uni-dimensionality as a human being that made it so easy for him to dope and lie about it in the first place prevents him from gaining any wisdom or insight regarding himself, sport, or life itself some 25 years after the fact. He is incapable of moving on or excepting responsibility for his actions. That Ben Johnson would be the one former champ talking about how he could have beaten the best of today if he had had access to today's technology- in other words, that he is the best of all-time- tells us all we need to know about him. In the era of Bannister, Snell, and Ryun, tracks were slower, careers were shorter, and economic incentives were non-existent yet, all ran pretty fast, even by today's standards (especially Snell and Ryun, who both trained much harder than Bannister.) Still, no former champion that I can think of has bothered to publicly make such an argument, even though all the ones prior to around 1970 had to have been clean. The fact is, it's impossible to know what any given athlete could have done with updated technology.
14 Report REPLY #7 Oldster said 8 years agoĪny former champion from any era can make the same kind of argument (e.g.
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