Testimony Identifies the Mystery Steroid Given Ben Johnson

TORONTO —  The mystery steroid that Ben Johnson’s doctor was administering to his athletic patients--the drug that cost the sprinter an Olympic gold medal--was stanozolol, a federal drug inquiry was told today.

And testimony today indicated that it is unlikely that the sprinter was the victim of sabotage.

Commission investigator Walter Greczko read from a federal laboratory analysis that identified a milky white substance obtained from Johnson’s teammate, Angella Issajenko, as containing all the properties of Winstrol V, a trade name for stanozolol, which is intended for use on animals.

Issajenko, Coach Charlie Francis and others have told the inquiry into cheating in sports that Dr. Jamie Astaphan, Johnson’s personal physician, called the drug estrogol.

Johnson’s test result baffled those close to the sprinter, who couldn’t understand how he tested for one drug when they thought that he was taking another.

Assertion Contradicted

They said Johnson must have been sabotaged. Today’s testimony indicates that he was not.

The laboratory analysis was conducted by Andrew Holmes, a chemist with Health and Welfare Canada.

Outside the hearing room, Astaphan’s lawyer, David Sookram, said Astaphan “never gave them Winstrol V. . . . He will give evidence on that point.”

Astaphan is expected to testify before the inquiry within the next month.

“The analysis doesn’t say it was Winstrol V,” he cautioned, denying that Astaphan misled his patients.

“I don’t suppose he would have told them anything but the truth. The evidence suggests a lot of things. Let us wait and hear what the doctor has to say.”

On Tuesday, veteran coach Andy Higgins told Commissioner Charles Dubin how he and some of his colleagues confronted national officials with allegations of steroid use by Johnson and his teammates, then asked if they should follow the same course after the athletes were given a ringing endorsement.

Bruce Pirnie, now a throwing coach at the University of Manitoba, described why he stopped taking the muscle-building drugs he had used for years while he was a shot putter. He said he suffered disturbing side effects and saw two friends contract cancer.

And Lynn Williams, one of the world’s top female middle-distance runners, expressed a resolve of competing clean in a sport that has been branded dirty.