The fastest, dirtiest and cleanest 100m sprinters of all time - Town Square #4
Usain Bolt is the only sprinter to have run below 9.76 seconds who has never served a doping ban. This is a list of the fastest sprinters ever in the men's 100m - an event plagued by doping.
If you would like to share this article on social media please share the following proxy link as Twitter and Facebook silence normal Substack URLs because it is a competing platform:
https://substack-proxy.glitch.me/articles/honestsport-substack-com-p-the-fastest-dirtiest-and-cleanest.html
“If you look at the all-time list, especially in the 100, I believe the top five time besides Bolt have all been busted for some type of ban” - Noah Lyles, the reigning 100m Olympic champion.
The men’s 100m is one of the blue ribbon events of the Olympic Games. But it is also arguably one of the ‘dirtiest’.
Below is a detailed list of the seventeen fastest sprinters ever.
Many of them have served doping bans.
Many of their training partners have tested positive.
And many of their coaches have faced their own scandals.
This is one history of the men’s 100m.
17. Steve Mullings (JAM) – 9.80s - Banned
Coaches: Lance Brauman, Steve Dudley
Steve Mullings was dealt a life ban from sport for committing two separate doping offences during his career.
In 2004, Mullings qualified for the Athens 2004 Olympics but shortly before the Games he tested positive for methyltestosterone. He was suspended for two years. At the time of Mullings’ positive drug test, the sprinter was training under coach Steve Dudley at the University of Mississippi (link).
When Mullings returned to track and field, he reached as high as number 3 in the world in the 100m and he finished second at the 2009 Jamaican National Championships behind Usain Bolt.
At the 2011 Jamaican Championships, when Mullings was coached by Lance Brauman, he tested positive for the masking agent furosemide. Earlier that year, he had run a personal best of 9.80s (link). At Mullings’ doping disciplinary hearing, the Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected Mullings’ claims of sabotage and he was permanently banned from sport (link).
16. Lamont Marcell Jacobs (ITA) – 9.80s
Coaches: Paolo Camossi, Rana Reider
Lamont Marcell Jacobs won the 100m at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in a time of 9.80s (link), under the guidance of the former Olympic triple jumper Paolo Camossi, from Italy. He has never failed a drug test nor has he been associated with doping directly himself.
However, shortly after winning the Olympics it emerged that Jacobs strength and conditioning coach, Giacomo Spazzini, had been the subject of a steroid investigation by Italian prosecutors. The criminal investigation centred around the false prescription of human growth hormone by an unqualified doctor based at Spazzini’s gym GS Loft. Spazzini was cleared at a criminal level, but he was later banned for 15 years by the Italian anti-doping agency; Spazzini’s employees were also sanctioned (link). However, Spazzini successfully appealed the suspension on the grounds that he was not a license holder in professional sport.
In 2023, Jacobs relocated to Florida, USA, to be trained by the controversial coach Rana Reider, who has recently had two of his athletes banned for doping (link). No evidence has emerged of wrongdoing by Reider in either case.
15. Ben Johnson (CAN) – 9.79s – Banned
Coach: Charlie Francis (banned)
At the Seoul 1988 Olympics, the Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson set a new 100m World Record of 9.79s in what is now dubbed the ‘Dirtiest Race in History’ (link). Johnson was famously disqualified post-race after he tested positive for the anabolic steroid stanozolol. Five of the other athletes in the race, including USA’s Carl Lewis and Great Britain’s Linford Christie, failed doping tests during their careers (link).
Johnson admitted to taking anabolic steroids. His doping was assisted by his coach Charlie Francis, who later wrote a tell-all book (link), and his doctor Jamie Astaphan from Saint Kitts and Nevis (link). The Canadian government conducted an official enquiry into doping in Canadian sport shortly after Johnson’s doping case. “Mr. Francis outlined how Mr. Johnson's steroid program was administered and monitored by Dr Astaphan between 1984 and 1986, until Dr. Astaphan returned to St Kitts. After Dr. Astaphan's departure, Mr. Francis became directly involved in administering steroid injections to Mr. Johnson right up to the period just before the departure for the Seoul Olympics,” (link). Coach Stephen Francis was banned for life by the Canadian Athletics Association.
Johnson, who was born in Jamaica, returned to track and field after his suspension had elapsed but he again failed drug tests in 1993 (link) and 1999 (link).
14. Maurice Greene (USA) – 9.79s
Coach: John Smith
Maurice Greene won the Sydney 2000 Olympics (link) and three 100m World titles between 1997 and 2001. Greene, from Kansas, became the first sprinter to match Ben Johnson’s time of 9.79s.
Greene has never failed a drug test but a doping dealer testified that he had supplied Greene with prohibited substances during the trial of Marion Jones’ coach Trevor Graham. The dealer, Memo Heredia, also provided proof that he had been wired $10,000 by Greene before the Athens 2004 Olympics. Greene won a bronze medal in the 100m at the Games (link).
Greene’s coach John Smith, trusted by Nike, also had several meetings in 2001 with Marion Jones’ doping chemist Victor Conte. The content of those meetings has not been made public because a ‘Non-Disclosure Agreement’ was signed. “If you are going to do something illegal, why would you sign a disclosure document? Do you think a crack dealer on the corner would say he would want you to sign a disclosure agreement before he sells you the crack?”, said Greene’s agent about the meeting (link).
At least six of John Smith’s sprinters, including several of Maurice Greene’s training group, have failed doping tests (link). The US Anti-Doping Agency did not use the evidence provided by the doping dealer Memo Heredia to sanction Greene.
13. Noah Lyles (USA) – 9.79s
Coach: Lance Brauman
Noah Lyles is the first male American sprinter to win the 100m, 200m and 4x100m World titles since Tyson Gay at the 2007 World Championships in Osaka, Japan. Lyles is also the reigning 100m Olympic champion (link).
Lyles has never failed a drug test nor been associated with doping.
Lyles is coached by Tyson Gay’s former coach Lance Brauman. Gay (link), Steve Mullings (link), and Kelly-Ann Baptiste (link) are three of Brauman athletes who have failed doping tests. No evidence of wrongdoing by Brauman emerged in any of the three cases.
12. Nesta Carter (JAM) – 9.78s – Banned twice
Coach: Stephen Francis
Nesta Carter is one of the most successful 4x100m relay runners of all-time. Carter won two Olympic relay golds, alongside Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell, at the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympics, as well as three World Championship titles.
However, the Jamaican team was disqualified from the 2008 Beijing Olympics after Carter tested positive for the stimulant methylhexanamine when his doping samples were reanalysed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 2016 (link).
In 2021, Carter was again caught doping when he tested positive for the female fertility drug clomiphene which is used to boost testosterone levels. Carter was banned for four years (link).
During his career, Carter was coached by Stephen Francis at the MVP Track Club in Jamaica. Several of Francis’ sprinters have failed doping tests.
11. Tim Montgomery (USA) – 9.78s – Banned
Coach: Trevor Graham (banned)
In 2002, Tim Montgomery ran 9.78s to break the 100m World Record set by his bitter rival Maurice Greene in 1999 (link).
Montgomery has never failed a drug test but in 2004 he admitted to using human growth hormone and anabolic steroids. Montgomery was supplied the doping substances by the BALCO chemist Victor Conte. Marion Jones, who was Montgomery’s partner at the time, also doped with the help of Conte. “Montgomery said Conte put him on Clomid (clomiphene), a drug for female infertility that male athletes sometimes take to mask the use of steroids,” (link).
Montgomery began doping when he started working with coach Trevor Graham prior to the Sydney 2000 Olympics. Graham, based in North Carolina, was also supplied drugs by the dealer Memo Heredia, who also worked with Montgomery’s rival Maurice Greene.
Montgomery won an Olympic gold medal in the 4x100m in Sydney, alongside Greene and Jon Drummond (banned for life), but they were never disqualified by the IOC (link).
In 2015, Montgomery took part in an Al-Jazeera documentary about doping in track and field and declared that he also obtained drugs in the Bahamas during his career (link).
10. Ferdinand Omanyala (KEN) - 9.77s – Banned
Coach: Duncan Ayiemba (banned)
Ferdinand Omanyala is the African Record holder in the 100m with a time of 9.77s (link). Omanyala won the 100m title at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
In 2017, Omanyala was banned for fourteen months after he tested positive for the corticosteroid betamethasone. According to documents from the case, Omanyala received a bethamethasone injection from a doctor for therapeutic reasons. Nevertheless, Omanyala’s doctor Jerita Mkaluma Mshila (link), and his coach Duncan Ayiemba were banned for six months and two years respectively. “She confirmed that he (the athlete) notified her that he was an athlete and was going to run and he asked her if the prescription would "affect" him. She confirms that she told him that the drugs prescribed were not "illegal" such as those,” (link).
9. Kishane Thompson (JAM) – 9.77s
Coach: Stephen Francis
Kishane Thompson won the silver medal in the 100m at the Paris 2024 Olympics. At the Jamaican trials prior to the Games, Thompson ran a personal best time of 9.77s. Thompson has never failed a drug test nor been associated with doping.
Thompson is coached by Stephen Francis at the MVP Track Club in Jamaica. Francis has also coached four sprinters who have failed doping tests; the double Olympic 100m champion Shelly Ann-Fraser Pryce (link), Asafa Powell (link), Sherone Simpson (link) and Ronald Levy. Levy, an Olympic bronze medallist in the 110m hurdles, tested positive for the experimental drug GW15016 and was banned for four years (link).
In 2010, Francis was reprimanded for providing Shelly Ann-Fraser Pryce with the opioid painkiller that led to her positive drug test. “According to reports, Fraser, while at the Shanghai Diamond League track meet in May, had been in excruciating pain following a dental procedure. Painkillers given to her by meet officials proved to be ineffective and the athlete, as a result, used one given to her by coach, Francis,” (link).
8. Fred Kerley (USA) – 9.76s
Coach: Quincy Watts, Alleyne Francique
Fred Kerley is an American sprinter who has won a silver and a bronze medal in the 100m at the past two Olympic Games. He has never failed a drug test nor been associated with doping.
Kerley is coached by the former Olympic 400m gold medallist Quincy Watts, from the USA. Prior to 2023, Kerley was coached by the former Grenadian sprinter Alleyne Francique.
7. Christian Coleman (USA) – 9.76s – Banned
Coaches: Tim Hall, Dennis Mitchell (banned)
Christian Coleman won the 100m title at the 2019 World Championships in Doha (link). Prior to the championships, Coleman was cleared of missing several drug tests by the US Anti-Doping Agency.
However later that year, World Athletics eventually banned Coleman for 18 months for committing three Whereabouts failures. “The Panel acknowledges that this is the Athlete's first offence and that, despite being subjected to frequent testing, there is no evidence of the Athlete seeking to avoid being tested, or masking drug use, or using drugs or otherwise seeking to evade doping controls,” (link).
In 2024, Coleman left his long-term coach Tim Hall, to be coached by the controversial former sprinter Dennis Mitchell (link). Mitchell, a bronze medallist in the 100m at Barcelona 1992, tested positive for excessive levels of testosterone in 1998. Mitchell famously blamed the results on having “too much” sex and beer with his wife. However during the trial of his coach Trevor Graham, Mitchell admitted that he had doped during his sprinting career, including with human growth hormone (link).
Damu Cherry, the vice-president of Mitchell’s training group Star Athletics, tested positive for the anabolic steroid nandrolone in 2003 and was banned for two years by USADA (link). Cherry is also Mitchell’s wife.
6. Trayvon Bromell (USA) – 9.76s
Coach: Michael Ford, Rana Reider
Trayvon Bromell is an American sprinter who has won two bronze medals in the 100m at the 2015 and 2022 World Championships. Bromell has never failed a drugs test and he has never been associated with doping. His personal best time is 9.76s (link).
As of five weeks ago, Bromell is now coached by Michael Ford at Baylor University.
Previously he was coached by Rana Reider at the Tumbleweed Track Club in Jacksonville, Florida. In 2021, two sprinters in Reider’s group, Blessing Okagbare (link) and Divine Oduduru (link), obtained doping substances from a Texan naturopath called Eric Lira before the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. They have been banned for a combined total of sixteen years. However, no evidence has emerged of wrongdoing by either Reider or any other athlete in the training group.
5. Justin Gatlin (USA) – 9.74s – Banned twice
Coaches: Dennis Mitchell (banned), Trevor Graham (banned)
Justin Gatlin won the gold medal in the 100m at the Athens 2004 Olympics in a time of 9.85s (link). A year later he won the World title in Helsinki, Finland.
In April 2006, Gatlin failed a doping test for synthetic testosterone and was banned for four years. Gatlin had already tested positive for amphetamines in 2001 while at the University of Tennessee. However, it was accepted that he had taken the drug to treat his Attention Deficit Disorder diagnosis (link).
In Gatlin’s testosterone case, both he and and his coach Trevor Graham claimed that he was a victim of sabotage. However, an independent arbitrator ruled that Gatlin has presented no evidence to show he had not knowingly taken testosterone (link). In 2008, Gatlin’s coach Trevor Graham was banned for life for supplying doping substances to elite sprinters, including Marion Jones (link).
Upon expiration of his doping suspension, Gatlin was coached by Trevor Graham’s former athlete Dennis Mitchell. Mitchell testified during Graham’s criminal case that he been injected with human growth hormone by Graham during his sprinting career.
In 2017, while working with Gatlin, Mitchell was the subject of an investigation by The Telegraph during which he allegedly offered to supply drugs to reporters (link).
In 2015, Gatlin ran a personal best of 9.74s (link) and won the 100m title at the 2017 World Championships at the age of 35 (link).
4. Asafa Powell (JAM) – 9.72s – Banned
Coach: Stephen Francis
Asafa Powell is a former 100m World Record holder (link), and he has broken the ten-second barrier 97 times which is more than any other sprinter in history. Powell won a relay gold medal at the 2016 Olympics, as well as two World Championship bronze medals in the 100m.
At the 2013 Jamaican National Championships, Powell tested positive for banned stimulant oxilofrene and was banned for six months. At the same event, Powell’s training partner Sherone Simpson, who was also coached by Stephen Francis, failed a doping test for the same substance.
Powell and Simpson argued that the source of their positive drug tests was a contaminated supplement provided to them by the Canadian physio Chris Xuereb. A panel accepted their defence even though both sprinters failed to disclose that they were taking the supplement in question on their doping control forms (link).
Xuereb was recommended to Powell by a chiropractor at the ISM Health & Wellness Centre where Xuereb used to work. The Canadian clinic is run by Dr. Anthony Galea who in 2011 pled guilty to bringing unapproved drugs into the USA after his assistant was stopped at the border with human growth hormone (link).
3. Tyson Gay (USA) – 9.69s – Banned
Coaches: Jon Drummond (banned), Lance Brauman
Tyson Gay won the 100m, 200m and 4x100m World titles in 2007. Gay ran his personal best time of 9.69s when he finished second behind Usain Bolt (9.58) at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin, Germany.
In 2013, Gay tested positive for the anabolic agent DHEA and was banned for one year. Gay was dealt a reduced sentence in exchange for providing evidence to USADA which was used to sanction his coach Jon Drummond.
Gay informed USADA he was provided with creams labelled “Testosterone/DHEA” by a doctor he had been introduced to by Drummond. Gay says that the doctor, Clayton Gibson, and Drummond both assured him that the products did not contain doping substances. Gay eventually tested positive for the drug on the label - DHEA (link). Drummond was banned for life for trafficking DHEA by USADA.
Gay was also coached by Lance Brauman during his career (link), however Brauman was not implicated in the USADA case. In 2013, Gay’s training partner Kelly-Ann Baptiste, also coached by Brauman, failed a doping but she too received a reduced sanction for co-operating with anti-doping authorities (link).
As a result of his doping ban, Tyson Gay, and his US teammates, were stripped of their 4x100m relay silver medals from the London 2012 Olympics.
2. Yohan Blake (JAM) – 9.69s – Banned
Coach: Glen Mills
Yohan Blake is the second fastest sprinter of all-time in both the 100m (9.69) and 200m (19.26). Only his training partner Usain Bolt has ever run faster. Blake and Bolt won two 4x100m relay Olympic gold medals together and they were both trained by Glen Mills at the Racers Track Club in Jamaica.
At the 2009 Jamaican National Championships, Blake tested positive for the banned stimulant methylhexanamine. Marvin Anderson and Allodin Fothergill, who were also coached by Glen Mills, tested positive for the same substance (link).
Methylhexanamine (DMAA) is a widely used doping agent which was reintroduced into the supplement market, by one of the ringleaders in the BALCO doping scandal, to replace the popular banned stimulant ephedrine (link). Notably, the Jamaican Olympic sprinter Dominique Blake (no relation) tested positive for ephedrine in 2006, and then methylhexanamine in 2012 (link). Several years prior to Blake’s failed drug test, methylhexanamine was considered undetectable during doping controls (link).
Blake was banned for three months after a panel accepted that he had unknowingly ingested a supplement containing the drug (link).
1. Usain Bolt (JAM) – 9.58s
Coach: Glen Mills
Usain Bolt ran the three fastest 100m times in history (9.58, 9.63, 9.69) and won 9 Olympics gold medals during his career.
Usain Bolt has never failed a doping test nor been implicated in doping.
However, Bolt was stripped of his 4x100m gold medal from Beijing 2008 after his relay partner Nesta Carter tested positive for the stimulant methylhexanamine. Carter was caught doping when his samples were reanalysed by the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) in 2016 (link). As part of the same reanalysis programme, at least two male Jamaican sprinters failed doping tests for clenbuterol at Beijing 2008. The identities of the Jamaican athletes were never made public (link).
Three of Bolt’s training partners, all trained by Glen Mills at the Racers Track Club, also failed doping tests for methylhexanamine in 2009 (link).
If you enjoyed this list, you can also read ‘The 14 Australian Open finalists to have faced doping cases’ (link).
Please support this newsletter by sharing it with friends or colleagues, or purchasing a subscription.
If you would indeed like to share this article on social media please share the following proxy link as Twitter and Facebook silence normal Substack URLs because it is a competing platform:
https://substack-proxy.glitch.me/articles/honestsport-substack-com-p-the-fastest-dirtiest-and-cleanest.html
I publish Long Reads on doping in sport, and the Town Square is a place where I cover recent anti-doping issues, and answer any questions my subscribers have about my longer doping investigations. It also has resources to learn about doping in sports (link).
I have no doubt Bolt was on the sauce. Don’t think there’s enough variation in genetics for him to be clean and still beat the times of the most elite sprinters in history who were caught doping.