ROME — Banned Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson raced again on Wednesday. But the prize was not a medal. It was his wallet, with 7,000 Canadian dollars (3,122 pounds) in it.

Johnson, 38, said he had been robbed by gypsies who distracted him as he was walking down Rome’s elegant Via Veneto to go to change some money. He told Reuters Television a woman and a girl of around 10 years old came up to him while he was on his way to the bank. While the child distracted him by asking for money for food, the woman slipped her hand in his pocket and stole his wallet.

The former 100-metre world record holder sprinted after the thieves and caught the girl. But the woman managed to do what many professional athletes could only dream of in Johnson’s heyday — outsprint him.

‘I don’t think they knew who I was,’ he said with a laugh, adding it was not one of the easiest races in his life.

‘They got away. I caught the wrong person. [The woman] came up behind me in a sneaky way and grabbed hold of my pocket. The young girl was holding my hand, and that’s the time when she went in my pocket.’ Johnson called the police to report the stolen wallet, which contained about 7,000 Canadian dollars.

‘Sometimes these things happen. It was my fault too, putting that kind of money in my wallet, my driving licence, my insurance number and everything is gone. The police are doing their best,’ he said.

But Johnson added philosophically: ‘It’s only money.’ He said he had intended to go to a bank to ‘change some money, to send some money home, to do a little bit of shopping’.

He was in Rome on his way back from a trip to Africa where he recently won a lucrative three-month contract to provide fitness training to the soccer-playing son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Johnson was stripped of his gold medal at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games after testing positive for steroids.

Reuters

Source: SOCOG