Coach of disgraced Johnson dies at 61

The Canadian coach, Charlie Francis, who trained star sprinter Ben Johnson, died in Toronto at the age of 61 years. Francis coached Johnson who was the first Olympic champion to be stripped of a gold medal after testing positive for anabolic steroids.

Francis became increasingly frustrated in the late 1970s and ’80s after getting poor response from the international track officials when it comes to punishing athletes using performance enhancing drugs, according to Richard Pound, a former vice president of the I.O.C.

From NYTimes.com:

In 1989, Francis was barred for life from coaching in Canada when he told an inquiry that Johnson and 10 other athletes had used performance-enhancing drugs as part of training programs he designed.
Francis continued to advise runners from around the world, in books, on the Internet and in person. For a time in 2003, the American sprinters Marion Jones and her companion, Tim Montgomery, worked with him in Toronto. Responding to pressure from sponsors and track officials, Jones and Montgomery left Francis. Both later admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs.
“Charlie’s legacy is multi-layered,” said Dr. Steven Ungerleider, a psychologist and author of “Faust’s Gold: Inside the East German Doping Machine.” “He wasn’t just an isolated coach, with an isolated athlete; he left this legacy that contaminated some of the greatest track stars of the world.”

It is worth noting here that Francis made an unapologetic admission that his athletes used performance enhancing drugs and IOC officials only thereafter formulated plans to handle incidents of drug abuse in sports.