Even now, with his 48th birthday quickly approaching, Carl Lewis looks like he could go 9.9 in the 100. Heck, on a good day with a nice tailwind and a fast track, Lewis looked as though he might even be able to pull off a 27-footer in the long jump.
No, he didn't get those nine gold medals and one silver in four different Olympics by accident. Nor was it a mistake when Sports Illustrated named Lewis the greatest U.S. Olympian of the 20th Century.
Clean living Chalk that up to clean living (Lewis is a vegan and a fitness devotee even though he retired from professional sports after the 1996 Olympics), which is a concept that doesn't seem to jibe with modern pro sports based on the latest headlines.
Then again, Lewis is all-too familiar with the seamy side of athletics. Actually, he had a front-row seat for a few of sports' all-time dirtiest moments. Of course none were more notorious than the September day in Seoul, Korea where Lewis ran a time good enough for a new world record in the Olympic finals of 100-meters only to watch as Canadian Ben Johnson ran away from him like he was stuck in the mud.
Three days later Johnson was disqualified when his drug test was tainted with the steroid Winstrol. Coincidentally, Winstrol is the same steroid baseball player Rafael Palmeiro tested positive for in 2005 and is also reported to have been used by Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens during their careers.
So yes, Lewis knows a thing or two about drugs in sports, and, he thinks he has some idea about when an athlete might be using it.
"The reality is that most people are clean," Lewis, the Willingboro, N.J. native, said following his appearance on Daily News Live. "When you have two out of 100 that's two percent, but if those two are in the finals, suddenly that's a very high percentage. And if two win medals, that's two out of three. That's [67] percent. Just so quickly it, goes up."