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PARIS — The mystery man is back. You must remember him: It was he who spiked Ben Johnson's beer with steroids in the drug testing room after the 100 meters final at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, robbing Johnson of the gold medal which he hopes he might now get back.
Or so Johnson believes.
The "truth" is all in the disgraced sprinter's forthcoming book. Along with the even more curious tale of how the most infamous drug cheat in Olympic history was an Egyptian pharaoh in a previous incarnation.
Yes, you read that right. That surprising info comes from Johnson's "spiritual adviser" Bryan Farnum. He and Johnson are friends and they wrote the book together. Farnum says he can read people's souls "and communicate with their spirits. I can go within the matrix. I see how many other incarnations that they have had."
And for me to interview Johnson, I had to have my aura checked out by Farnum first.
Apparently, it had problems, discernible even on a trans-Atlantic call. Something about my parents dying in a previous incarnation and me not forgiving them for it. Over the phone, Farnum had me recite a prayer to put my past to rights.
"OK, it's gone," he said when we were done. "Did you feel any lighter in your head?"
"Umm, no. I can't say that I did. Maybe it will be a delayed effect?" I ventured.
"You need to think about it," he said.
OK.
So, back to the book.
Trouble is, the story of the supposed steroid saboteur that Johnson is selling isn't at all new.
Johnson's entourage trotted out that excuse back in Seoul in 1988, when Johnson's positive test for the banned steroid stanozolol stunned the world and forever tainted our view of sports people and the depths some of them stoop to for victory.
His agent at the time, Larry Heidebrecht, spoke of a mysterious stranger who gave Johnson a mysterious drink with a bad-smelling "yellow gooey substance" at the bottom. And Johnson's coach, Charlie Francis, told a Canadian judicial inquiry about a tall and dark-skinned American who sat next to Johnson in the doping control room at Seoul's Jamsil Olympic Stadium.
"The drink was on the floor and this guy was beside the drink," Francis testified back in 1989. "Ben said: 'I knew there was something wrong with that guy ... He had no purpose to be there.'"
Ah, yes, says Johnson, but the difference now is that he has a "confession."
From who?
"The person that done it," Johnson tells me in a subsequent phone interview with him and Farnum together.
"I can't say too much right now," he says.
Pressed for details, he suggests that the saboteur was paid off by "sponsors" whom Johnson won't name, at least not yet.
"He (the mystery man) says that he has to put food on his table and the money was right, so he had to do whatever he do to make a living."
"All detailed in the book," Johnson adds.
Curious indeed.
In a follow-up call, I leaned on Johnson again for a name. Eventually, reluctantly, he confirmed one: Andre Jackson.
Into Google it went. The Internet search engine coughed up a certain Dr. Andre Action Diakite Jackson, a diamond industry executive and businessman seemingly based in Africa.
Could this be the guy? I sent Jackson e-mails. This was the reply:
"In the face of what really took place inside the drug testing room in Seoul, the most up to date reality is that after 22 years, I've genuinely lost interest in responding to or countering such claims, particularly since the actuality has no direct benefit to anyone ... In conclusion, this conversation has reached its peak and I have obviously moved on with my life, so at this time, I would encourage Ben to continue working on controlling his destiny (or someone else surely will)."
Curiouser still.
Anyway, Johnson has his version of events and he's sticking with it. He even believes that his "new revelation" might force the International Olympic Committee and track and field's governing body, the IAAF, to re-examine his case, perhaps even return the gold medal.
"If I get it back, it's good, if I don't, it's OK, because I can never lose something that I didn't have. I only have it in my possession for only 24 hours and it was gone ... But I worked for that medal," he says. Despite having lived in Canada since the age of 14, Johnson still speaks with the accent of Jamaica, where he was born.
"I think that I am going to have a lot of supporters out there" writing to the IOC and IAAF to demand the case gets another look, he says.
The public will say "we knew that something was wrong from day one and here it is, what are you going to do about it?'" he says. "Put the mystery man on the stand, too."
I ran that past the IAAF and IOC.
"There is no chance whatsoever that the IAAF will investigate his claims, because they are not new. He made them already in 1988," said its spokesman, Nick Davies.
For the IOC, spokesman Mark Adams added: "If and when we receive credible new evidence we would of course consider it; as yet we have received none."
So that seems to be that.
But what about Johnson's reincarnations?
Using his "very strong spiritual gift," Farnum says he discerned that Johnson has had "many" previous lives and that "in other incarnations, I was his father."
In this life, they've been friends for a few years.
And Johnson, who was he previously?
Farnum at first laughed, then said: "Well, you know what? I'm going to tell you who he was, OK? That's OK. We can break this news, it doesn't matter. It's just going to help the book. He was Khufu, going back to Egypt ... He was a pharaoh."
"Look him up," he added. "There was a story about Khufu, about his drink, his beer, being poisoned."
Curiouser and curiouser.
But it's all in the book.
___
John Leicester is an international sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jleicester(at)ap.org.
