Lewis discounts significance of failed drugs test at ’88 trials

NINE-TIME Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis has shrugged off the controversy surrounding his failed drug tests at the 1988 Olympic Trials.

The American told the Orange County Register newspaper the United States Olympic Committee at the time routinely let athletes off with a warning.

“There were hundreds of people getting off,” said Lewis in his first public comments since the controversy surfaced. “Everyone was treated the same.”

But a US Olympic Committee spokesman said there was no evidence that hundreds of people “got off.”

“The rules that were in place in 88 were the rules that were applied,” said Darryl Seibel. “The rules were predicated on sole intent to enhance performance in an unfair manner.”

“The climate was different (then),” Lewis said. He insisted that the herbal supplement that he took did not give him an unfair advantage over his competition.

Lewis was one of 19 American medallists named by Wade Exum, the former United States Olympic Committee director for drug control from 1991 to 2000, who released more than 30,000 pages of documents relating to cases detailing cover-ups involving some of the biggest American names in Olympic sport.

Exum’s papers reveal more than 100 positive drug tests involving US athletes from 1988 to 2000. In many cases, he alleged, the athletes were not prevented from competing. Included in the documents are details implicating athletes who won 19 Olympic medals from 1984 to 2000.

Lewis was just one of three future gold medallists, along with the 200m winner Joe DeLoach and the 400m hurdle champion Andre Phillips, who tested positive at the Olympic trials in Indianapolis.