9.79*

Great episode!!! This was really fun to watch. We see their races, which are actually very hard to find as the Olympics have extreme copyright rules. We have interviews with most of the runners from the Olympics in question where Ben Johnson broke the world record and tested positive days later. We have the runners explain what they felt, what they did, a bit about their families. And we have a big run-up to the race itself with other races and Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson competing. Ben Johnson was an unknown Canadian athlete suddenly getting world famous and very rich because he started doping and perform. The 100 meter race was a gigantic event and doping was rampant. First East Germany, but soon people in the West got the same drugs. At first it was impossible to test for. And athletes didn't use them during races anyhow. They used them to train and grow. And then used other drugs to pee water. So the doping agencies would wonder about why they kept testing water instead of urine.

Some Canadian coaches were irritated about Canada being terrible in the Olympics. So they found some regular Black athletes with good genes for sprinting they could dope and make the best in the world. I'm actually not sure who the coaches were. We don't get many interviews with them. The guys who produced the drugs didn't do interviews in this episode so a ton of names are just mentioned out of nowhere.

This doc is about 30% about Carl Lewis, 20% about Ben Johnson and then the rest is about other runners and background info. We get very little big info as mostly runners are interviewed about opinions and memories. Which is still cool of course. The runners just appear, give a statement, and we move on. It's hard to really understand everything here because there is no slow date progression shown. We just fly from event to event. The narrator is also not featured that much. So it feels like a rush of events just jumping at you.

We don't learn where the drugs come from. Who the main suppliers were. How they got in contact with the athletes. How the coaches were punished for it? What they felt about it? How many athletes do they know about?

But from this doc it was VERY clear way more athletes could be revealed. At the end a guy even said he retested old samples and another guy said there is no point in revealing the past dopers he knows about. It's quite clear there are people alive who could destroy the 80's and 90's results with the info they have. Removing old world records and medals. It feels like a mystery.

The issue is that the doc is empty on info. We don't see how this stuff is tested or taken. We don't even see how Ben Johnson tested positive later on. They just mention a future positive test that got him banned for life. The guy just had to take drugs to be able to compete at a top level. His life seems interesting. But this is largely about one race only so we don't see much outside of that.

Watch this to have some fun. But you likely want something deeper to get to the core of the issue.

30 for 30: 9.79* (2012)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Very good entry in the ESPN series takes a look at the 1988 Olympic games in Seoul, South Korea where the 100m race was won by Ben Johnson who defeated his rival Carl Lewis only to have the Gold taken from him when it came out that he was on steroids. 9.79* just really proves that it seems everyone in sports was taking steroids back in the day. With the recent stuff dealing with Lance Armstrong and the past decade of issues in baseball, it's just becoming more and more clear that the majority of people were using something at some point in their careers. This documentary not only covers that one race but also the previous years when Lewis was a king and Johnson was pretty much a nobody but we then see what happened to the two men over the next three years. What's so great about this is that director Daniel Gordon managed to interview all eight runners from that Olympic race and it was very interesting hearing from them all these years later. It's clear that Lewis is still extremely upset over the stuff while it appears Johnson has found peace with it. Fans of the sport or documentaries in general should really enjoy this as it contains some great human drama.

This time we're delving into the 1988 Summer Olympics and the much-publicized sprinter's duel between Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis in the 100m final. The film is an oral history of sorts, with interviews from all eight participants in the race, but often devolves into finger-pointing and contradiction. In some respects that's revealing in and of itself - clearly, nobody wants to take any blame for the sad state of affairs that led to such a high-profile blowup, when they're each partially responsible - but in others it's maddeningly frustrating. With their athletic days now long behind them, the only thing many of these former runners have to hold onto is their legacy, and they stomp all over that by slamming Johnson for his positive test, then sheepishly fessing up to their own PED suspensions near the end of the picture. As a historical panorama, this is entertaining - particularly in the build to the race itself - but when the central debate flares up and the runners each begin painting themselves as the victim, nobody's there to hold their feet to the fire.

I enjoy ESPN's "30 for 30" sports documentaries, though occasionally they have shown one where I really had a hard time liking any of the folks featured. This didn't make the film bad--just perhaps a bit less enjoyable than usual. "9.79*" is definitely an example of one of those tough to like group of athletes, as by the end I pretty much hated them all!

The film is about the 100 meter final in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. Although Canada's Ben Johnson won the race, he was later disqualified due to performance enhancing drugs. The film is about this as well as the general problem of such drugs in the 1980s.

What did I learn from this film? Well, most of the finalists in the 100 meters are total jerks! Not surprisingly, Johnson makes a lot of excuses and comes off like a kid who is sorry...only after it's been proved conclusively that he's a cheater. And, he clearly is a cheater. His excuse seems to be 'everybody's doing it'--and after seeing the film, you come to think that this might be true--as MANY of the finalists were later caught cheating as well, but in other competitions. And, many of them also whine and make excuses. Overall, this is the sort of sorry group who make folks like me hate sports and watch less and less and less of the Olympics as the years pass. A great example of a bunch of pathetic 'athletes', but still a well made film. Just because these runners are weasels doesn't mean the filmmakers didn't do an excellent job!!