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in 1989, it was thought that she was slinking away before body fat ratio revealing hard muscle, were down to his
she got caught. Ben Johnson’s phenomenal win over training methodology. In a time of greater separation
favourite Carl Lewis in the men’s event was revealed to be between the sexes, he trained her as he would a man.
grounded in steroid use, and eyes turned to the radically She engaged in hundreds of leg curls every night, and
different Flo-Jo. They are rumours that persist to this day. trained 12 hours per day.
It doesn’t help that her world records for the 100 Even with her death at the age of 38 from an epileptic
and 200 metres are still unbroken. Some sprinters have seizure, her triumphant life was questioned. Joyner
almost given up hope of matching them. For example, in requested that her body should be screened for drugs
1996, 200m world record holder Gwen Torrence said: “To so that her name could finally be cleared. No trace was
me, those two records don’t exist. Women sprinters are found, though it was later revealed that she did not have
suffering because of what she did to the times in the 100 enough urine in her bladder for a proper test. Despite
and 200.” this, Joyner felt vindicated, saying, “She passed the
Griffith-Joyner always flatly denied the allegations. ultimate drugs test. The one consistent thing about my
She said that ‘’I have never taken any drugs. I don’t wife was that she never dodged those questions about
believe in them. It’s a false accusation.’’ She was in drug abuse, she never hid from anything. Where can
fact never proven to have taken them. The rumours they go from here? They can’t argue with it.”
should really have stopped when the president of Florence Griffith-Joyner was, and still is, an icon.
the International Olympic Committee’s medical Growing up as she did in one of Los Angeles’ poorer
commission, Prince Alexandre de Mérode, said, “We neighbourhoods, she had to drop out of school to
performed all possible and imaginable analyses on support her family. Once she finally managed to pick
her, we never found anything. There should not be the up a small sponsorship deal for her running career, she
slightest suspicion.” never looked back. She allied her tremendous physical
Her husband and coach, Al Joyner, has been powers with her determination to become one of the
contesting the claims ever since they emerged. He said Olympic giants. Her tragedy is only in the shape of her
that the changes in her body, with an incredibly low untimely death, and not in the way she lived her life.

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