ESPN 30 for 30: Ben Johnson

Trevor,
I hate telling you this but it was on last night on TSN.

^^^^ ouch lol

Just wanted to say that I caught the documentary on tv. I thought it was good. It was nice to see Charlie again, even if only through previous interviews and footage. Hope everything is going well with you Angela.

ouch is right. Thanks Angela.

I was on the road so I didn’t catch the 30 for 30 from the beginning. I was glad to see that they did not bury Ben or Charlie like the rest of the mainstream media has over the years. I actually tweeted about it and saw a lot of others tweeting as well. Some appeared outraged about the whole thing (rightfully so). Glad ESPN picked it and helped educate the world about what actually happened (or at least allow people to draw their own conclusions).

I recorded it on my PVR, watched it and will watch it again for sure. So many scenes left me with goosebumps.

I’m surprised how much I disliked Calvin Smith after watching it, as I’d always liked him before. Otherwise the documentary covered well-traveled territory but it was really cool to see the workout/training footage and some of the old photos.

I loved watching that 30 for 30, best one this season!

At the end, my wife looked at me with surprise and said what an A-hole Carl was :), and she had no history going into watching it like we all did.

It WAS a good one! That is for sure.

I was hoping that it would show BJ’s semi-race…the one that was called back after some twitching in the blocks…that must have been a .100 R/T Legit.
After reading speed trap for the 1st time back in the early 90s…i couldn’t help but wonder if he got that kind of R/T in the final and everything else being the same…slowing down with his arm in the air to a 9.76
Wow!!!

That F/S is no where on youtube dot com

edit: that false start is briefly shown in 02 Vancouver but one would have to see the whole thing and all the replays to get what I am talking about.

There was always an issue with the F/S with Ben as the device at first were apparently calibrated a certain way and much controversy ensued. I remember also what you are talking about regarding the footage.
Daniel Gordon told me a large cost of the film was spent getting the rights to the footage from all the races and clips. It’s possible he had access to seeing this film but it has not been released and or he chose not to use it. People do not understand ( nor did I ) the cost of making Documentary’s ( I was not aware either) but I remember discussion about the semi’s and believe there was some issue surrounding it.

I like hearing what non - track people think about the film and how interesting it is that people can read character traits just by watching others being filmed telling a story.
I love people commenting on this because I feel this film has been a small piece to an event that was the backdrop to most of my entire adult life.
Thank you to everyone for watching it.
Thank you for ESPN and BBC for buying it.
I have already thanked Daniel Gordon for his awesome talent presenting his work.
Just another reason why cf.com is around as it provides a place for people to learn about a topic and decide for themselves what they think.

I may have a source that still has it…it’s worth looking into.

Also, I remember when everyone was looking for 86 Zurich race and I sent a copy of a copy (VHS) to CF w/ Dr. K Hood (a student at the time who was working on my leg).
The copy was so bad I don’t think it helped much. J Lee was able to post it on youtube though. There has been 1-2 other videos posted since…thankfully.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GfNjvqOHIU

Another angle at the start of the 1987 WC 100 w/ Carl telling us why he was upset at the end…always changing his story.

here is the documentary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSXO27ffP3c