The Dirtiest Race in History by Richard Moore

Author:Richard Moore
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Published: 2012-02-13T16:00:00+00:00

Saturday, 29 August 1987

In Rome’s Stadio Olimpico, built under orders from Mussolini, it was a latter-day Italian dictator, Primo Nebiolo, who beamed with pride as the second World Athletics Championships got underway. These championships, bigger and bolder than Helsinki’s, would reflect both Nebiolo’s vision and the dark underbelly of his ambition. The major controversy in Rome involved a long jump that was falsely measured to get an Italian a bronze medal.

John Holt, Nebiolo’s long-suffering general secretary at the IAAF, describes the incident, involving a blameless athlete called Giovanni Evangelisti, as the low point of Nebiolo’s tenure. ‘He had to have his finger in every pie, which is what got him into trouble eventually, with the Evangelisti case,’ says Holt. Yet somehow Nebiolo survived the controversy, even as the Italian press pursued the truth of the rigged long jump with impressive doggedness. It was eventually resolved with poor Evangelisti’s bronze medal being rescinded, and awarded instead to Larry Myricks.

On the eve of the championships, Nebiolo’s big hope – apart from Italian success – was to see a world record in one of the blue riband events. The 100m would fit the bill very nicely. In a pre-event dinner, Nebiolo pulled Carl Lewis to one side, and told him, ‘This is going to be the greatest meet of all time.’ Then he told him how much he wanted Lewis to bless the championships with a new world record. ‘A few minutes later,’ said Lewis, ‘I saw him talking to Ben Johnson, probably saying the same thing.’

Nebiolo was beginning to seem untouchable, not least because, as the championships got underway, he was poised to join the most exclusive club in world sport. He had been proposed by Ollan Cassel, the executive director of USA Track and Field, for membership of the International Olympic Committee, despite the fact that Italy already had its quota of one member, Franco Carraro, the former water-skier and future mayor of Rome. Juan Antonio Samaranch was keen to make an exception on the basis – as Nebiolo had consistently, if self-servingly, argued – that the man in charge of the biggest Olympic sport should sit at the IOC’s top table. In bending so obligingly to Nebiolo’s will, Samaranch may also have been guided by the old maxim: keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

In Rome there seemed no end to Nebiolo’s power and influence. But there is no doubt that he had also created a fantastic sporting occasion. After three successive Olympics diminished by boycotts, and some doubt as to whether the Communist bloc would attend Seoul the following year, here was an event for athletics to savour. ‘Everybody who is anybody is here,’ said the New York Times, adding that one event ‘stands out by the sheer force and electricity of the two favourites, Lewis and Johnson in the 100’.

Johnson flew to Rome from Berlin, picking up an in-flight magazine which had a lengthy feature on his rivalry with Lewis. In Francis’s view it was typical of many articles: pro-Lewis, anti-Johnson.

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