Did Ben Johnson get screwed at the 1988 Summer Olympics?
Sports Media with Richard Deitsch
Audacy
4.5 • 757 Ratings
🗓️ 23 April 2024
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Episode 392 of the Sports Media Podcast features Mary Ormsby, the author of "World's Fastest Man*: The Incredible Life Of Ben Johnson." Ormsby worked at the Toronto Star for three decades where she was one of Canada's most acclaimed sports investigative reporters. In this podcast, Ormsby discusses her reporting on Ben Johnson and his race at the 1988 Seoul Olympics; how she approached re-reporting a story from more than 30 years ago; why there are many people who believe Johnson did not get due process in Seoul; how to market a book about an event that happened 36 years ago; what Ben Johnson is doing today; Johnson working with Diego Maradona in the early 1990s; Ormsby playing college volleyball at Ohio State in the early 1980s and more. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and more.
Transcript
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| 0:28.7 | welcome to the sports media podcast. |
| 0:40.9 | I'm your host Richard Deich. |
| 0:41.8 | My producer is Patrick Antonetti. |
| 0:43.4 | One guest this week, but an excellent one. |
| 0:46.0 | Mary Ornsby is the author of World's Fastest Man, |
| 0:50.1 | The Incredible Life of Ben Johnson. |
| 0:52.2 | For those in the audience who don't know who Ben Johnson is, Google that name, 1988, Seoul Olympics, |
| 0:58.6 | arguably the most famous 100 meter gold medal run in the Olympic Games because of what happened. |
| 1:04.9 | Ben Johnson tests positive for steroids eventually loses his gold medal, but should he have? |
| 1:10.7 | Is the real interesting question there. |
| 1:12.7 | And Mary Orinsby, who worked at the Toronto Star for three decades as a sports writer and an |
| 1:18.2 | investigative reporter, one of the great investigative reporters in Canadian sports history, |
| 1:22.8 | went back. |
| 1:24.1 | She reported on this at the time, went back and has a pretty extraordinary book |
| 1:28.3 | that if you're into, certainly if you're into track and field or the Olympics, you should read, |
| 1:33.1 | it's really revealing and interesting. So again, world's fastest man, the incredible life |
| 1:37.7 | of Ben Johnson. Mary Ormsby is the guest coming up on the sports media podcast. |
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