Ben Johnson heads campaign to 'clean up sport'

A quarter of a century after the most infamous race in athletics history, the Canadian is headlining a campaign to put an end to doping in sport, and an Australian entrepreneur by the name of Jaimie Fuller is behind the dream.

Johnson recorded a staggering time of 9.79 seconds in Seoul’s Olympic Stadium in what was branded as the ‘dirtiest race in history’ with six of the eight runners associated with doping.

But now, with that shadow still cast over the sport of athletics and beyond, Fuller has formed a partnership to join with Johnson, a man he reportedly says “personified doping” for the project #ChooseTheRightTrack.

In an interview with the Independent, Johnson said: "The world caved in on me… it cost me everything… I doped and I am sorry… pressure to be the best is all-consuming."

The plan is to take Johnson back to Seoul and on 24 September, the anniversary of the 100m final, for him to stand in lane six, the same lane, the same stadium, and unroll a petition calling for greater action in the war on drugs to "improve the waning credibility of world sport".

Fuller, as in cycling, where he has campaigned vigorously to end Pat McQuaid's tenure in charge of the sport, believes truth and reconciliation as one of the cornerstones of a new sporting world.

He also believes that Armstrong will one day – once the American's legal battle with the United States government is resolved –play a part in the clean-up process.

"I spent three days with him a few weeks ago," Fuller said. "He'd love to [get involved]. He's the one person in the sport of cycling that can contribute the most.

"One of the challenges we face is that you are talking about athletes that move through the system after they retire and they go into administration and management roles and these guys too have participated in doping practices.

“Quite often these are the guys standing holding the flaming torch and the pitchfork screaming, 'Hang him, hang him, ban him for life'. And it's that hypocrisy that needs to be dealt with.

"Use the combination of carrot and stick; the carrot is the incentive of no retribution, no punishment; and the stick is if you don't take advantage of this and we discover either through testimony of others or through some new technology [that you've doped] then you are going to be hung, drawn and quartered."

He added: "I'm not looking for fame or media attention. I'm just trying to help the situation. I'm trying to help myself and clear my name once and for all and say, 'This is the problem, I'm not the problem, I'm a small solution of the system that I was involved in'."

Johnson is the headline act for Fuller's campaign, a campaign that hopes to eradicate doping in sport once and for all.

"Most athletes want to win. It's a temptation,” Johnson said. “Once you go across that bridge there's no turning back.

“You want to win a gold medal? Be fastest in the world? You keep asking yourself these questions. This is the price you have to pay, but this is what you can get in the end, on the other side.

"As a young kid, it's a path I took. It's the way my life is. I chose that path and that's the way it is. Yes, I do have some regrets. What I did was wrong. I'm trying to change that."