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Volume No. 1 Issue No. 86 - Wednesday August 23, 2006 |
Kittitian Doctor Who Provided Ben Johnson with Steriods is Dead
 The Dominican.net News Desk
Jamie Astaphan the Kittitian doctor who admitted he provided Canadian athlete Ben Johnson with steroids, is dead at the age of 60.
Dr. Astaphan, brother of St. Kitts security minister Dwyer Astaphan, reportedly was found dead by family members early Friday morning. Astaphan died after a heart attack, St. Kitts Police Commissioner Meredith Charles said Monday.
He moved back to St. Kitts after Johnson was stripped of his medal and banned for two years for testing positive for steroids at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Johnson tested positive for testosterone in 1993 and was banned for life.
 Astaphan, who was born George Mario Astaphan, initially denied giving the banned substances to Johnson, but then testified at a 1989 inquiry that he injected the sprinter with steroids between 50 and 60 times over five years leading to the Seoul Games.
A graduate of the University of Toronto medical school, he had defended his decision saying he felt it was his responsibility to help athletes take the drugs safely to build muscle.
"The axiom among track and field and other athletes was: If you don't take it you won't make it," he told the inquiry.
"So if I didn't monitor them and if I didn't give it to them they were going to get it elsewhere, and most of them had got it elsewhere. They came to me for advice and for supervision and I thought it was my responsibility to do this."
Astaphan was a boastful man and his large ego was on display at the inquiry, where he bragged he could easily "beat any test" and that athletes from 12 countries flocked to him for his expertise in the area.
He initially denied vehemently ever giving drugs to Johnson, even showing up unexpectedly at the CBC studios just days after the news broke in Seoul to give a memorable interview to Barbara Frum in which he progressively began to twitch more and more and developed a facial tic.
Astaphan spoke glowingly of Johnson.
"He's like the son I would want."
Astaphan returned to his native St. Kitts after being banned from practicing medicine in Ontario for 18 months and fined $5,000 by the College of Physicians and Surgeons in June of 1991, who accused him of professional misconduct.
He once told The Canadian Press that he'd wished he'd followed his initial inclination to become a sailor.
As a teenager, he worked as a deckhand on his father's ferryboat, the Rosal, which travelled between St. Kitts and its sister island of Nevis.
"If my parents hadn't pushed us � particularly my mother � I would be home running a charter boat," he said in the days after Seoul. "I would have been a hell of a lot happier."
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