Greene obsession drove me to doping- Montgomery
Disgraced sprinter Tim Montgomery has revealed how an obsession with
beating Maurice Greene led to him using performance-enhancing drugs and
set him on a path of self-destruction that has ended with him serving an
eight-year prison sentence.
Montgomery, the former world 100m record holder, has served 18 months
of his sentence for dealing heroin and handling counterfeit cheques,
crimes he was convicted of after being banned from athletics for doping
in 2005.
"I destroyed myself," Montgomery acknowledges in an interview with
The Times, conducted in the Alabama prison where he spends his days
earning 12 cents an hour sweeping leaves. "I've been trying to be a man
all my life and now I'm in here treated like a kid."
Montgomery admits he never had any second thoughts about crossing the
line that separates clean athletes from drugs cheats like himself and
his former partner, Marion Jones.
"I'm not going to sugar-coat it, there wasn't even a second thought
that I was cheating," he said. "It was all about getting one over the
system and if I could, I would.
"That was what I learnt on the streets. But I tell you, if I'm cold,
Marion's even colder. Marion didn't care about anything."
Montgomery says his desire to be the world's best was fuelled by a
jealous obsession with the success of Greene, a contemporary who
overtook him in his early 20s.
"Maurice got in my head real bad," he said. "I wanted everything that
he had. The meet organisers and the shoe companies, they said, 'If you
can't beat these guys - Greene and Ato Boldon - we can't pay you like
them.' "It was bad enough without him lining up and flexing his muscles
the way he did and flicking his tongue.
"It was embarrassing the way he was out there clowning the other
athletes. Our races weren't about the times we ran; for me it was
personal. All I wanted was the person." The desire to beat Greene led to
Montgomery joining Jones in the group of athletes coached by Trevor
Graham, who introduced him to steroids. "I was thinking, 'This is the
green light.' All I wanted was the big Nike contract, the commercials, I
wanted to be the star."
Montgomery also reveals how he and Jones were so confident they would
not be caught doping that they used to keep steroids in their fridge.
"Being suspended for two years didn't cross my mind," he said. "When I
lived with Marion, I got cameras put on the gates so if a tester came,
I'd know not to answer the door."
Montgomery's confidence on that score proved misplaced and, he says,
it was the cost of defending himself against doping charges that led him
to the crimes for which he is now paying the price.
"I had been living beyond my means from the track world anyway," he
said. "I needed money and the only way I knew how to make money was
drugs."
Montgomery, who has married the mother of one of his four children
while in prison, is hoping that he will not have to serve all of his
sentence and even suggested he could return to the track at the 2012
Olympics in London.
He is able to train in prison and says he can run the 100m in
10.3secs in tennis shoes. "Give me a pair of spikes and three months'
proper training and I could probably get down to 10 flat."
LONDON, Nov 27, 2009 (AFP) |