If you want to see some of the work Francis has done for T-Mag look at: http://www.testosterone.net/html/body_128high.html
BTW, forget Francis for a moment. Publications like T-Mag and Flex are not where people go to specifically learn about steroids (though those publications at least implicitly support steroid use) or where Francis would go to be a steroid guru. There are more than enough steroid boards around giving advice on cycles, what type of gear to use, clearing times and the like. And yes, you do see track and field athletes posting to these boards. I've even seen much discussion by people talking about what the level of gear use was among their high school competitors. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of EAMONN CONDON Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2003 10:39 PM To: _Track Field Subject: t-and-f: Making dopes of us all The Electronic Telegraph Thursday 6 February 2003 Paul Hayward Testosterone Magazine is probably not on your list of weekly reads, so allow me to entertain you with a few literary offerings from Charlie Francis, the track and field guru who coached the eternally disgraced Ben Johnson and is now helping Tim Montgomery and Marion Jones, the world's fastest man and woman respectively. Francis is the Canadian Lazarus who was told by the athletics authorities this week that his crime sheet would be burnt if he came before the sport's star chamber with a statement denouncing drugs. They ought to have asked him two years ago, after the Sydney Olympics, when Francis was still writing and talking enthusiastically about performance-enhancing potions. In those days, the coach who helped Johnson acquire those fetching yellow eyes was not quite so fond of the International Association of Athletics Federations, who invited him to renounce his wicked past. During the nandrolone crisis, Francis wrote of the IAAF and International Olympic Committee in Testosterone, which is a form of pornography for body-builders: "With all of the confusion and contradiction, it's reassuring to know there's one thing of which you can be absolutely sure. You can't believe anything these two organisations say! Hell, they don't even believe what they say!" It's also reassuring to know that Francis somehow managed to persuade the former Ontario Chief Justice, Charles Dubin, to support his campaign in favour of moral amnesia. Dubin, who led the inquiry into Canada's great drugs scandal after the 1988 Olympics, was asked by a Toronto lawyer, Terry O'Sullivan, to provide a character reference for Testosterone's star columnist. The old judge assented, and later gushed in an interview with the Toronto Star: "He [Francis] broke the code of silence and told his story at great personal sacrifice." The "story" was how he had helped Johnson run the 100 metres in 9.79sec in Seoul: the briefest and most graphic spasm of villainy in modern sport. The Toronto Star, to their credit, were not deterred. They asked Judge Dubin whether he was familiar with any of the pro-drug remarks Francis had been making in various interviews and articles. "I haven't followed what he's said since the [Johnson] inquiry," Dubin responded. "He's a personal trainer for a lot of people I know and they speak very highly of him." One arrow of Charlie Francis's wisdom that passed the judge by was this tribute to the pharmaceutical industry - again in Testosterone, a must-read for gym-addicted dysfunctionals: "Drug use in sport has a long and grand tradition. Perhaps we really should give out medals to the scientists assisting the athletes. That'll never happen, of course. But make no mistake - the theme of modern sport regarding drug use remains 'business as usual'." After Sydney, Francis wrote: "If anyone is clean, it's going to be the losers." How reassuring, then, to read Francis's response to the IAAF's kind invitation to him to clear the air. Since Johnson was busted, Francis said, he had never "encouraged nor condoned the taking of banned performance-enhancing substances by any of the athletes who have consulted me". He also thanked Montgomery and Jones for rescuing him from purdah. He spoke of their "personal integrity and decency" and reached deep into Orwellian double-speak to say: "To any rational observer, their deliberate choice of me as their consultant should be sufficient evidence that they do not use banned substances, since by their mere association with me they knew they would be subjected to public scrutiny and unjustified cynicism." If that's the Charlie Francis guide to "rational" observation, mark me down as certifiably irrational. Crackers, in fact. A straitjacket job. If his world is so right-way-up, one wonders why Jones and Montgomery issued a statement claiming they were being coached by an obscure Canadian, Derek Hansen, around the time that both athletes were spotted working with Francis at Toronto's York University and later in Hawaii. Click on to Francis's personal website and a picture of Johnson comes up in the top left-hand corner. His articles and Q & A sessions are peppered with academic references to his prize bull. "Although Ben lifted weights extensively, he had only two major hamstring injuries in 11 years of competition. . ." It's Ben this, Ben that. Say one thing for Francis: not until he issued that putrid and self-aggrandising statement at the IAAF's behest could he be accused of hypocrisy. In Testosterone, one of his ultra-technical training lectures begins with an editorial statement. Contrition is not part of its make-up: "In 1988, Ben Johnson and his coach Charlie Francis were singled out and ultimately destroyed at the altar of fair play. Careers were destroyed, reputations were soiled, and the world never looked at the Olympics the same way again. "Those responsible for the witch-hunt, those nameless shadowy figures who think they're above the law, failed to do one important thing. They couldn't shut Charlie Francis up." Never mind shutting him up. They couldn't, or wouldn't, stop him being reborn as the world's foremost 100m coach. This is surely track and field's most spectacular own goal since Johnson's demented rampage in Seoul. Here is a sport in monumental denial. Francis is still banned from working with Canadian athletes but is free to advise foreign sportsmen and women. Naturally, there is no evidence that steroids or growth hormones are part of the training regimen now being followed by Jones and Montgomery. But the sport's willingness to confer fresh respectability on a man who preached the liver-wrecking and brain-curdling gospel of anabolic steroids makes you wonder whether the Race Relations Commission will approach Lee Bowyer to become their next chairman. As Michael Johnson, five times an Olympic champion, pointed out in Saturday's Daily Telegraph, Jones is a slow learner. At 16 she was suspended for missing a dope test but was reinstated with the help of Johnnie Cochrane, the celebrity lawyer. In Sydney, her then husband, the world shot put champion, C J Hunter, tested positive for nandrolone. Moreover, Jones was once coached by Trevor Graham, whose stable returned two positive tests inside three years: Patrick Stewart of Jamaica, who was caught using stanozolol - Johnson's drug of choice in Seoul - and Brian Frasure, a nandrolone positive at the Sydney Paralympics. Ironically, Montgomery (9.78) is the only sprinter to have broken Johnson's illegal 100m record of 9.79. One of Jones's missions is to break Florence Griffith-Joyner's women's record of 10.49, which was also set in Seoul. It's not hard to see where American athletes go to get their moral lead. Last year, a former United States Olympic Committee drug control director, Wade Exum, alleged that some American athletes in Sydney had been allowed to compete and win medals despite testing positive at Olympic trials. It emerged in Australia that C J Hunter had also tested positive in a pre-Olympic competition but had not been dropped from the team. The USOC are in political and financial turmoil. There have been five resignations, vicious infighting and even congressional inquiries. One top US Olympic sponsor has ridiculed the organisation's "Keystone Kop routine". Touchingly, Fast Track, who stage Britain's televised meetings, have invited Montgomery and Jones over to London to "explain" their association with Francis, who would probably tell you privately that he is the fall guy for institutionalised cheating by coaches. Maybe he was, and is. The last word on denial and evasion, though, and Francis's return, should go to the IAAF's general secretary, Istvan Gyulai, who announced to the world: "If he has a totally new definition regarding the way to success in the sport, this is the only way. It should be very clear, very honest and very credible." Eamonn Condon [EMAIL PROTECTED]
