Some of you might not know, I run an online track & field magazine. I had the pleasure of interviewing former Olympic, World champion in the 100m, Canadian Donovan Bailey.
The article can be found here. From the interview, he gives me the impression that he’s such a professional and business-like. True enough that’s how he was in real life.
Well I think he’s a great role model, and during his athletic reign before his retirement in 1998, there never was a drug scandal incident involving him, not even mere mention of rumors.
So to say, this sprinter gave hope to all drug-free athletes out there. Here’s an article about his rise to fame and view on athletics for which I find inspiring to all runners
By Ashling O’Connor
WHEN he ran the 100 metres in 9.84sec in Atlanta, Donovan Bailey was not only setting a new standard for himself. The Canadian sprinter was also helping to redeem a country whose sporting reputation had been tarred by Ben Johnson in Seoul.
Bailey’s drugs-free world record might have cleansed the Canadian spirit by atoning for a national shame, but back then, for him, it was just a race. “It was just about me dominating in the sport, Bailey, who retired from international sprinting two years ago” he says. But there was at least a degree of redemption. “If people are actually going to have a conversation about track and field, now it’s a positive thing, whereas it never ever was in Canada” he says. “It was always about Ben Johnson, about being dirty”
Bailey says that he was never offered drugs. He kept the right company. “My team was always very tight and we’re still together now” he says. “We never let anyone in who would be of any influence whatsoever”
So what does he think of the recent controversies involving athletes hanging out with the wrong crowd? Tim Montgomery and Marion Jones were forced to dump Charlie Francis, Johnson’s former coach, after pressure from peers and sponsors. Similarly, Denise Lewis received heavy criticism for using Dr Ekkart Arbeit, who administered performance-enhancing drugs to East German athletes, although she refused to bow to it.
Bailey believes that it is an individual choice. “The problem is not the coaches really. We all have decisions as men and women”he says. “Every athlete is going to go to coaches they think can help. Denise has all the right in the world to do that. The rest is up to her. She is under the British drug-testing system, they can go test her”
Unlike Johnson or Carl Lewis, Bailey does not try to trade on his past. Relatively speaking, his time was gone in the blink of an eye. Almost as quickly as he set a world record in the 1996 Olympic final, the Jamaican-born athlete was gone from public view.
Within three years, he had gone from an unknown 26-year-old who had played basketball at college to the world’s fastest man. “It’s funny how track started for me because I came in, took it as a business, took it seriously and got it all done”he says. “So I was ready to retire in 1998. It was just economics after that”
His legacy is the Olympic record, the world record over 50 metres and the record for the fastest speed set by a human 27.1 mph. Now 35, he has more philanthropic ambitions. He has established an eponymous sports foundation to help budding Canadian amateur athletes in winter and summer sports. He hopes that the Canadian Olympic Committee will administer it for him after he sets up a board to give out the first grants.
“I think my platform has surpassed just athletics,” he says. “I’ve never been worried about the economics of my wellbeing. It’s more of a legacy for me to make sure that, whatever I’ve risen to, kids want to be world champion or Olympic champion or world record-holder”
