King
04-01-2007, 03:43 PM
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
Published: April 1, 2007
By Simon Hart
Asafa Powell remembers it well. It was the day after his 100 metres victory at Crystal Palace, one of a dozen sub-10-second performances he managed last season, and as his plane touched down in his homeland of Jamaica he hit the 'on' button on his mobile phone. Instantly it began to ring. It was his manager, Paul Doyle.
"He just said, 'Justin Gatlin's tested positive'," Powell recalls. "My reaction was: 'I can't believe it. Are you sure about that?' I was very surprised but I also felt sorry for him and I regretted that it had happened."
Sympathy is not the reaction one might expect from an athlete who had just been deprived of a lucrative showdown against his great track rival. Gatlin had recently equalled Powell's world record of 9.77sec and a match-up between the two fastest men on the planet would have been one of the richest races in athletics history.
But even now, as he prepares for his first race of the new season at the Mount Sac Relays in California in two weeks' time, Powell, 24, still feels some compassion for Gatlin, whose world and Olympic titles will be nothing more than a memory unless he wins his appeal for a reduction of his eight-year ban. "There is some bitterness, knowing that he was taking drugs," says Powell, "but there's a part of me that is very sorry for him because there were some mixed reports about it and he said he didn't knowingly take drugs. You don't know what to believe but I just can't imagine how wrecked his life is now."
Powell's attitude, shaped perhaps by his staunch Christian upbringing, does not mean he is soft on performance-enhancing drugs. Far from it. While he has sympathy for Gatlin the man, his views on the punishment of drug cheats are distinctly Old Testament.
"It's doing something illegal," he says. "Maybe they should even be locked up for a while. A lot of athletes are out there running their hearts out and not taking anything and these people are taking drugs and knocking food out of their mouths."
Coming from such an introverted man, Powell's outspoken opinion is a measure of his anger at the way cheats are undermining athletics.
The damage Gatlin and others have caused to the sport's credibility was brought home to him last summer when a friend showed him a print-out from a website where a contributor was claiming that every top-class sprinter was on drugs - an allegation he found "very upsetting".
"I'm sure a lot of people think that I'm taking banned substances," he says. "It's natural because last year a lot of athletes tested positive. When Justin tested positive I was the next person for people to look at.
"A lot of people were saying that I must be on drugs and that upset me because I know I'm not on drugs. It's very frustrating. No matter what I say or what I do, people are still going to say, 'Asafa Powell must have taken drugs'.
"I suppose it's natural because I used to say things like that at one time; before I was into track and field. I'd say, 'that sprinter's taking drugs and that's why he's running so fast' or 'once you go to America you end up taking drugs'. I didn't understand things fully at that time. Now I just want to show the world how fast an athlete can run without taking drugs, and that's where I'm going right now."
His mention of America is significant. Powell has resisted the lure of the United States, preferring to live and train at home in Jamaica where he can be close to his friends and family. It is primarily a lifestyle choice but he also has issues with the country's drug culture.
"Over the years, even before I started track and field, people always had bad things to say about Americans because over the years many of their athletes have tested positive," he says.
"People have always had that negative thinking about Americans. You have some athletes there who want to do it clean but there are also athletes who are tempted to do it because it's hard to make a living, and that's the only way out they see."
Being a sporting hero in Jamaica does bring its own problems, though. He arrives for our meeting in a central Kingston hotel accompanied by two minders and studiously avoids eye contact with people milling around in the lobby. "I try not to walk around because a lot of people will come up to me and I won't be able to move with people wanting me to sign autographs and taking pictures," he says. "I'd be there all day, so now I just drive everywhere. If I could have driven right into this hotel I would have done."
Powell's fame extends well beyond Jamaica. Tomorrow he will be in Barcelona for the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year awards, short-listed alongside Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso, Fabio Cannavaro, Roger Federer and Tiger Woods. He describes the honour as "overwhelming".
But it is another title that is Powell's priority this year: the 100m crown at the World Championships in Osaka in August. Despite his achievements against the clock, there are doubts over his big-race temperament following his disappointing fifth-place finish at the Athens Olympics in 2004, a result which led to the dismissal of his sports psychologist. The only senior gold medal of his career came at last year's Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.
Along the way, he is also planning on lowering his world record - something he believes is "almost certain" after equalling it twice last year, at Gateshead and then in Zurich, despite being hampered all season by a sore hamstring and a habit of slowing up towards the finish line. Both problems are now solved, he insists.
His big regret is that, with Gatlin out of the equation, there is no-one else to provide the head-to-head competition that athletics promoters and the fans crave.
"It's very sad because last year when people were paying to sit in the stands and watch the 100 metres, the only thing they were looking for was a world record because they already knew who was going to win.
"I was just racing against the clock. I just hope that someone can step up. Maybe Francis Obikwelu can do it, or some other guy."
Powell would like nothing better than a good, clean fight to restore the public's faith in his sport.
"I want to be a role- model," he says. "That's my main goal in life because after achieving my ambition of winning the Olympics and the World Championships, I don't want people saying that Asafa Powell must have been taking drugs. I want them to say, 'That's one good athlete. He did the sport clean'."
Published: April 1, 2007
By Simon Hart
Asafa Powell remembers it well. It was the day after his 100 metres victory at Crystal Palace, one of a dozen sub-10-second performances he managed last season, and as his plane touched down in his homeland of Jamaica he hit the 'on' button on his mobile phone. Instantly it began to ring. It was his manager, Paul Doyle.
"He just said, 'Justin Gatlin's tested positive'," Powell recalls. "My reaction was: 'I can't believe it. Are you sure about that?' I was very surprised but I also felt sorry for him and I regretted that it had happened."
Sympathy is not the reaction one might expect from an athlete who had just been deprived of a lucrative showdown against his great track rival. Gatlin had recently equalled Powell's world record of 9.77sec and a match-up between the two fastest men on the planet would have been one of the richest races in athletics history.
But even now, as he prepares for his first race of the new season at the Mount Sac Relays in California in two weeks' time, Powell, 24, still feels some compassion for Gatlin, whose world and Olympic titles will be nothing more than a memory unless he wins his appeal for a reduction of his eight-year ban. "There is some bitterness, knowing that he was taking drugs," says Powell, "but there's a part of me that is very sorry for him because there were some mixed reports about it and he said he didn't knowingly take drugs. You don't know what to believe but I just can't imagine how wrecked his life is now."
Powell's attitude, shaped perhaps by his staunch Christian upbringing, does not mean he is soft on performance-enhancing drugs. Far from it. While he has sympathy for Gatlin the man, his views on the punishment of drug cheats are distinctly Old Testament.
"It's doing something illegal," he says. "Maybe they should even be locked up for a while. A lot of athletes are out there running their hearts out and not taking anything and these people are taking drugs and knocking food out of their mouths."
Coming from such an introverted man, Powell's outspoken opinion is a measure of his anger at the way cheats are undermining athletics.
The damage Gatlin and others have caused to the sport's credibility was brought home to him last summer when a friend showed him a print-out from a website where a contributor was claiming that every top-class sprinter was on drugs - an allegation he found "very upsetting".
"I'm sure a lot of people think that I'm taking banned substances," he says. "It's natural because last year a lot of athletes tested positive. When Justin tested positive I was the next person for people to look at.
"A lot of people were saying that I must be on drugs and that upset me because I know I'm not on drugs. It's very frustrating. No matter what I say or what I do, people are still going to say, 'Asafa Powell must have taken drugs'.
"I suppose it's natural because I used to say things like that at one time; before I was into track and field. I'd say, 'that sprinter's taking drugs and that's why he's running so fast' or 'once you go to America you end up taking drugs'. I didn't understand things fully at that time. Now I just want to show the world how fast an athlete can run without taking drugs, and that's where I'm going right now."
His mention of America is significant. Powell has resisted the lure of the United States, preferring to live and train at home in Jamaica where he can be close to his friends and family. It is primarily a lifestyle choice but he also has issues with the country's drug culture.
"Over the years, even before I started track and field, people always had bad things to say about Americans because over the years many of their athletes have tested positive," he says.
"People have always had that negative thinking about Americans. You have some athletes there who want to do it clean but there are also athletes who are tempted to do it because it's hard to make a living, and that's the only way out they see."
Being a sporting hero in Jamaica does bring its own problems, though. He arrives for our meeting in a central Kingston hotel accompanied by two minders and studiously avoids eye contact with people milling around in the lobby. "I try not to walk around because a lot of people will come up to me and I won't be able to move with people wanting me to sign autographs and taking pictures," he says. "I'd be there all day, so now I just drive everywhere. If I could have driven right into this hotel I would have done."
Powell's fame extends well beyond Jamaica. Tomorrow he will be in Barcelona for the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year awards, short-listed alongside Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso, Fabio Cannavaro, Roger Federer and Tiger Woods. He describes the honour as "overwhelming".
But it is another title that is Powell's priority this year: the 100m crown at the World Championships in Osaka in August. Despite his achievements against the clock, there are doubts over his big-race temperament following his disappointing fifth-place finish at the Athens Olympics in 2004, a result which led to the dismissal of his sports psychologist. The only senior gold medal of his career came at last year's Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.
Along the way, he is also planning on lowering his world record - something he believes is "almost certain" after equalling it twice last year, at Gateshead and then in Zurich, despite being hampered all season by a sore hamstring and a habit of slowing up towards the finish line. Both problems are now solved, he insists.
His big regret is that, with Gatlin out of the equation, there is no-one else to provide the head-to-head competition that athletics promoters and the fans crave.
"It's very sad because last year when people were paying to sit in the stands and watch the 100 metres, the only thing they were looking for was a world record because they already knew who was going to win.
"I was just racing against the clock. I just hope that someone can step up. Maybe Francis Obikwelu can do it, or some other guy."
Powell would like nothing better than a good, clean fight to restore the public's faith in his sport.
"I want to be a role- model," he says. "That's my main goal in life because after achieving my ambition of winning the Olympics and the World Championships, I don't want people saying that Asafa Powell must have been taking drugs. I want them to say, 'That's one good athlete. He did the sport clean'."