Meanwhile, others received leniency. That included a group of track-and-field athletes from the U.S. and Britain, according to the IOC document.

Eight unnamed Americans, tested during competition shortly before the Games, were not sanctioned after their cases were discussed in Seoul. Star British sprinter Linford Christie barely avoided Olympic disqualification, despite one commission member declaring Christie’s test result after the 200 metres “a clear case of doping.”

In the 100-metre race, Christie was awarded the silver medal after Johnson was sent home. The British runner passed his drug test in that sprint, held a few days before the 200 metres, without incident.

Johnson maintains he was “targeted” at the Games for disqualification.

“I came in clean and came out dirty,” he said in an interview.

In most Olympics during the early days of competition, challenges with venues and logistics arise. Seoul was no different. The medical commission report noted there were security problems at doping control rooms and lab issues, including:

New “wide-necked bottles” for athletes’ urine samples sometimes leaked, causing potential problems with labelling numbers “as some bottles had been replaced”; people without special identification passes were entering secure doping control room areas (where athletes provided samples) — in one case, an overly curious Turkish team doctor was forcibly removed from volleyball’s control room; four “instruments” in the main IOC anti-doping lab broke during the Games, pushing lab testing to capacity midway through the Olympics.

One thing that pleased the commission was the skill of the main lab where urine samples, collected at various sports venues around Seoul, would be analyzed for a long list of prohibited substances. It reported to its members that a pair of planted samples by system testers had been correctly identified.

“Two test positive samples had been placed among the boxing controls and had been successfully detected by the laboratory for (the anabolic steroid) oxandrolone and caffeine,” it was noted in a meeting on Sept. 19, 1988.

Oxandrolone was printed on Johnson’s 1988 lab report paperwork, then scratched out. Stanozolol was the final finding.

In Seoul, medical commission members didn’t always agree among themselves when considering athletes’ explanations for doping infractions.

In Linford Christie’s case, for instance, there was a “lengthy discussion” among members after which “it was decided that that athlete should be given the benefit of the doubt” that the levels of pseudo-ephedrine in his system were linked to ginseng consumption. The vote was not unanimous. Christie’s case was publicly discussed during the Seoul Games by British Olympic team officials.

As for the two Olympic medallists who avoided sanctions, the Star is not identifying them other than to say they were not track-and-field athletes.

The eight American athletes had their identities protected in the medical commission report while almost every other athlete with potential doping infractions was identified — including one athlete who had also tested positive for a banned substance prior to the Seoul Games.

(One unnamed cyclist is mentioned in medical commission notes, referencing his “low concentration of an anabolic steroid because of cream applied in his trousers.” It’s unclear if the cyclist was in Seoul; there were no more details about him.)

The American cases went before International Amateur Athletics Federation officials, who listened to a presentation from the United States Olympic Committee on Sept. 19, according to medical commission notes. The notes go on to state that “the cases had concerned over-the-counter herbal preparations containing ephedrine” and that the IAAF “was satisfied with the report submitted and ruled that no sanctions would be taken and the case was now closed.”

In 2003, Sports Illustrated reported that at the 1988 U.S. Olympic trials, Carl Lewis tested positive three times for “small amounts” of banned stimulants found in cold medications. Lewis was initially disqualified from the Seoul Games but the USOC overturned the decision on his appeal, agreeing that it was inadvertent doping, the sports magazine reported.

Lewis is not named in the 1988 IOC Medical Commission report.

When Ben Johnson’s case came before the commission, it was all over in about three hours.

In Seoul in 1988, Montreal lawyer Richard Pound — who was a well-regarded IOC vice-president — defended Johnson.

Neither Johnson nor his coach, the late Charlie Francis, attended the hearing; others, including Roger Jackson, then the president of the Canadian Olympic Association, and Canadian chief medical officer William Stanish, an orthopedic surgeon, were at the session that began at 10 p.m. on Sept. 26.

The 1988 report stated that early in the meeting, it was noted that commission member Prof. Manfred Donike had been “responsible for the analysis of the B sample” and he explained the findings to the group. The B-sample testing confirmed the steroid findings in Johnson’s A sample.

According to the report, Pound told the commission the Canadian delegation didn’t want to challenge the scientific results but broached a “certain lack of security” between the end of the 100-metre final and the time Johnson provided his urine sample, at the doping control station at the track-and-field stadium.

The report goes on to say Pound “stressed the build-up which had surrounded the 100m race and the two principle athletes (Johnson and Lewis) involved” and that Pound “felt there had been a general breakdown in procedures following the race, rendering the result of the doping tests questionable.”

Pound stated that people who accompanied Johnson to doping control, including an RCMP officer assigned to the athlete, claimed there were “many other people in the dope control station other than those whose presence was required for the test.”

The lawyer also raised the possibility that Johnson’s water bottle had been tampered with when he put it in a basket with his warm-up clothes to race. Pound told commission members a stranger was in the doping control room, offering to get the sprinter beer (Johnson got his own) but who sat “very close to the athlete.” According to meeting notes, it was later alleged — though it’s unclear by whom — that the unknown person had been seen with Lewis, which commission chairman Alexandre de Merode “pointed out as possibly quite harmless.”

(The Star tracked down the stranger, a friend of Carl Lewis’ named Andre Jackson, in a 2016 investigation.)

Before the commission, Pound described Johnson as “a slow learner” but an athlete who “retained the importance of collecting his own beer.”

Pound further expanded the sabotage theory — a theory that would be debunked later at a royal commission.

He said stanozolol was a drug that metabolized quickly, “thus favoring its use should anyone wish to ‘frame’ someone else,” and that it tightened muscles, something not “sought for by a sprinter,” according to report notes. Pound added Johnson was an experienced athlete who knew he’d be tested after an Olympic race; had been tested several times in 1988 with all results negative; and “that considering the reasonable doubt which surrounded the test, an athlete of such calibre was entitled to the benefit of the doubt.”

The anti-doping experts pushed back.

Dr. Arne Ljungqvist, a Swedish commission member who was also chairman of the International Amateur Athletics Federation Medical Commission, was in the doping control room when Johnson arrived after his race. Ljungqvist said he questioned staff there, but “staff were convinced that no unauthorized persons had been present,” according to the meeting notes.

Even so, the archived document states that “regarding entry of the unauthorized persons to the dope control station,” Ljungqvist reported that a large sign had been placed after the concern was raised at the entrance to the track-and-field doping control room.

Prof. Donike told the Canadian delegation that sabotage was not consistent with the steroid profile interpreted from the failed test — meaning long-term use was detected by the endocrine profiling method Donike had pioneered.

He also acknowledged the magnitude of Johnson’s predicament. Donike, who is now deceased, said “the entire commission was perfectly aware of the implications of a positive case for such an athlete and for sport in general.”

Pound “clarified” that Johnson had a negative test just weeks earlier at a Zurich race. After that, the Canadians, including Pound, left the meeting room, and de Merode opened the floor for discussion.

Behind closed doors, Donike said a negative test before the Games “was of no consequence” and concluded “a single dose application just prior to testing could be excluded.” Donike was the commission member who didn’t want Johnson’s test challenged by analyses of his water bottle or medications, according to the archived document.

Chairman de Merode asked for opinions in the room, including that of an IAAF representative. After that, “the Commission voted unanimously for the exclusion of Ben Johnson from the Games of the XXIVth Olympiad in Seoul.”

The commission’s recommendation, which came at about 12:45 a.m. Sept. 27, 1988, was forwarded to the IOC’s executive board later that morning. The board accepted it and Johnson was disqualified. He lost his medal and his world record of 9.79 seconds.

Thirty years later, Johnson said Pound didn’t aggressively defend him before the IOC Medical Commission.

“I believe he didn’t reach out far enough or strong enough to protect me,” Johnson said, after learning more about the report.

In fact, the report refers to the ethics of whether Pound was in a conflict. One member, Dr. Kenneth Fitch of Australia, didn’t feel it was “correct for an IOC vice-president to appear before the IOC Medical Commission in order to protect an athlete from his country.” The commission unanimously requested that de Merode speak to the IOC president, Juan Antonio Samaranch, “to ensure that such a situation did not occur in the future.”

Pound says he had previously cleared the matter with Samaranch.

In a recent phone interview, Pound said he’s never seen the Olympic Medical Commission document from 1988. He also said science made it clear that preparing any defence of Johnson in Seoul would be difficult.

“If you’re caught with the sample being analyzed containing the stanozolol metabolites, you’re dead,” Pound said.

Research by Patrick Oberli, a Swiss-based sports journalist at Le Matin Dimanche

Mary Ormsby is a reporter and feature writer based in Toronto. Reach her via email: mormsby@thestar.ca