TORONTO -- A teammate's offer to inform on Ben Johnson was rebuffed by the head of the Canadian Track and Field Association three years before the sprinter tested positive for anabolic steroids at the Seoul Olympics.
A government inquiry into drug use in Canadian sport heard Thursday that CTFA head Wilf Wedmann vetoed a proposed surprise drug test on Johnson in 1985.
Wedmann also nixed a proposed drug hotline for other athletes willing to come forward with information, Glenn Bogue, former CTFA athletes' services manager,told the inquiry.
Bogue testified he made the proposals to Wedmann after Johnson's teammate Desai Williams offered to tip Bogue off when Johnson next began a steroid cycle.
'We all knew that testing at major competitions couldn't work,' Bogue said. 'We were pretty sure that the only thing that was going to work was a surprise test.'
Williams, sixth in the 100 meters at the Seoul Games, told Bogue that he was worried about Johnson's health and demoralized about the rapid improvements Johnson was making with steroids, especially since he was training harder than Johnson.
Williams told Bogue that he could spot when Johnson was using steroids because he was a different person.
'He said he could tell by his demeanor: 'it's in his eyes, it's in his mood, the way he appears on those days he's on it,'' said Bogue.
Wedmann brushed off his proposals, said Bogue, who identified his informant to Wedmann only as a high-ranked teammate of Johnson's.
'His reaction was there had been rumors about Ben before and that his reading about steroids indicated that the athletes who were at the top of the world should be there and they were of nominal help to the very top athletes,' Bogue testified.
The inquiry was sparked by Johnson's positive test in Seoul. The Canadian sprinter was forced to give back the gold medal he won in the 100 meters after traces of the anabolic steroid stanozolol were found in his urine.
Wedmann, who Bogue described as a philosopher rather than a man of action, was not willing to investigate.
'He said if the athlete was not willing to come forward and sign an affidavit with his name on it, he was not willing to act,' said Bogue.
Bogue said there were no other parties to whom he could turn. A year later, he left the CTFA over this and other issues, he said.
'When I died the hard death at Wilf's desk, I really couldn't go anywhere else,' said Bogue, now in the constuction business in Philadelphia.
Bogue said he felt Wedmann stonewalled the matter because he lacked the courage to 'go out on a limb and take the heat.'
Johnson's coach, Charlie Francis, had already fought attempts to begin random testings. It was also unclear whether the CTFA had the authority to require Johnson to produce a urine sample on demand.
Bogue described Francis as a consumed coach who counselled young sprinters to use 'ridiculous' amounts of drugs and judged an individual's worth on his or her athletic performance.
'Charlie, to me, lived in a world of numbers and times,' said Bogue. 'And the faster times they ran the better person they were.'
The hearings are adjourned until May 24.