Edwin Moses: Colossus of sport laments 'clean' age of track and field

Mandela's mantra of sport as a force for good has a perfect protector. Alan Hubbard meets the legend now scaling hurdles in the world's trouble spots

On the track, Edwin Moses was as remorseless a winner as he is these days a dedicated promoter of the Nelson Mandela mantra that sport has the power to change the world. Once described as the most ruthless athlete in history, the academic hurdler who went to the same school as Martin Luther King always wanted to be remembered as "the guy nobody could beat". And he almost got his wish, remaining undefeated for nine years, nine months and nine days, for 122 consecutive races.

On the track, Edwin Moses was as remorseless a winner as he is these days a dedicated promoter of the Nelson Mandela mantra that sport has the power to change the world. Once described as the most ruthless athlete in history, the academic hurdler who went to the same school as Martin Luther King always wanted to be remembered as "the guy nobody could beat". And he almost got his wish, remaining undefeated for nine years, nine months and nine days, for 122 consecutive races.

He soared almost effortlessly over the 10 three-foot hurdles, taking an unprecedented 13 steps between them instead of the usual 14, and was never one for hiding lights under bushels. "My slow is faster than most athletes' fast," he used to say. From 1976 to 1989 he competed in 156 400m hurdle races and was beaten just six times, a record unlikely to be equalled in athletics.

And it was all done without the aid of drugs. Not a shot, a pill or even a potion. Unlike his Biblical namesake, this Moses was not one for swallowing the tablets.

These days he focuses mainly on his work as chairman of the Laureus World Sports Academy and the Sport for Good Foundation, its charitable offshoot, which embraces 37 projects around the world. Tomor- row he will preside over the sixth swish, star-studded ceremony that heralds the Oscars of global sport, in Estoril, Portugal.

He will be among friends as well as fans. Sebastian Coe, one of his fellow Academy members, says of him: "Ed's a colossus, an absolute colossus. Paramount in any judgement you make about any athlete's career is consistency, and he was unbeatable, technically incomparable, oozing confidence in a way that was quite fearsome. Most of us in sport look up to him as the athlete's athlete. He has always had a very broad view of the world, which is what has made his chairmanship of the awards so outstanding."

Moses, who will be 50 in August, looked as lean and fit now as he was at his athletics zenith when we met in London last week. "I've always tried to keep my body in top physical condition, but for me my main consideration has been my diet." He lives alone in Atlanta, cooking for himself "ninety per cent of the time, usually pasta and fresh vegetables". He also trains regularly, not on the track every day but plenty of stretching exercises and running with his German Shepherd, Basil. However, two years ago he wasn't quite in the shape he is in now. He was quite ill with a bout of E. coli and dysentery, picked up not during his travels in the Third World for the Laureus foundation, but at a restaurant in Europe. "It took me more than a year to recover," he says.

It was on the back of that recovery that Moses, the Olympic champion of 1976 and 1984, took an extraordinary decision to attempt a comeback with, it seemed, the ambition of competing in the Athens Olympics on the brink of his 49th birthday. "A scientific and emotional experiment," was how he described it.

It was painfully short-lived, aborted because of injuries to both knees. "The joint lubrication was not what it was when I was competing, and I decided that not having arthritis or rheumatism for the rest of my life was a lot more important to me than returning to the track. I would have been happy to see if I could run 50.5 seconds or so just to qualify for the US Olympic trials. That was my only intention. I wasn't trying to relive anything or even get into the Olympics. I didn't need that. Lots of people let it go by and never accomplish what they want. I just wanted to see what I could do."

At Morehouse College in Atlanta, where he majored in physics and engineering, he was known by fellow students as "the bionic man", because of his scientific approach to the sport. When he was a 20-year-old little-known scholar from an all-black college, he won his first Olympic gold medal in Montreal in 1976, just four months after running his first 400m hurdles, setting a world record of 47.64sec. His victory by eight metres over Mike Shine was the largest winning margin in the event's history. The world record he set in 1983, 47.02sec, endured for another nine years.

He never got the chance to defend his Olympic title because of the US boycott of Moscow, something which still rankles, and away from the track he fought vigorously for athletes' rights, challenging the rules that had prevented amateurs from accepting money for competing and making endorsements. But he did not receive the same support from his contemporaries when he became an anti-drugs campaigner, calling for random testing, a few years later.

Moses went on to win gold at the 1983 World Championships, despite his shoe-laces coming undone on the back straight, and again in the Olympics in 1984. Another gold came in the 1987 in the World Championships, avenging the defeat inflicted by Danny Harris earlier that year.

His final Olympic medal, a bronze in 1988, was achieved in Seoul at a Games scarred by the Ben Johnson drugs scandal. "I know for a fact that there were other athletes in that Olympics, even in that race, who were on drugs," he says. Big names? "Oh yes, some very big names. We know now a number of tests both in 1984 and '88 were thrown away. I've sat on a drugs commission myself, and I know what happens, what contingencies were made.

"But I ran in an age that was the last when most of the top people were clean. I'm not so sure today. I know of many people who have told me they have lost interest in the sport because they don't believe what they see. They believe everyone is dirty now, and nothing seems to be done about it.

"I know what I achieved I did as a clean athlete, and I know there are ways to do that. I never even took vitamins, I just out-trained everyone else. What is overlooked is that it takes a lot more sacrifice to be clean and a lot more diligence in your training. It takes more time and it hurts a lot more. These are the things that have been lost to the sport."

So is there a solution? "There has to be a lot more research done, a lot more money spent on top endocrinologists and pharmacists to find out how these substances are invented, and how to prevent them being used. Or find out who is manufacturing these drugs illegally. Hopefully, the Balco inquiry will help improve things. Now this has become a criminal matter it is not likely to go away."

He says he is happy to have competed in what was athletics' golden age - "in terms of what the sport really represented. Every- one knew who the athletes were, and what sort of personalities they were. Nowadays the athletes don't care about anything except results. If they can run a fast race that's all they want to get out of track and field. All they want is the money. There's no transfer of information, anything like that."

In his Laureus roles Moses marshals the judgement and travels the world with the likes of Lord Coe, Sir Bobby Charlton, Sean Fitzpatrick, Nawal el Moutawakel, Daley Thompson, Ian Botham, Nadia Comaneci and Boris Becker. "In all there are 42 legends of sport, but when we meet up egos are parked outside. We act like the board of directors of a big company, independent of sponsors or other influences. It's the only sports award I know of that is ultimately decided by the peers of those nominated. We look for true champions, not those who have the most commercial appeal. It is done on achievement and character."

Moses has led humanitarian projects to dozens of countries through the foundation, the most recent being to Cambodia, where he and the film star Jackie Chan set up a landmine-removal project. "This is a country affected by war for 50 years, and is the most heavily mined area in the world. We saw kids with limbs blown off by mines only weeks before. Our aim is to use sport to help the rehabilitation process. Our work with the foundation focuses on helping young people overcome issues like poverty, homelessness, drug abuse, HIV and teenage pregnancy. Twenty years ago, with Live Aid and so on, music was the catalyst. Now it's sport.

"As Mandela said, sport is the universal common denominator. Everyone looks up to it. Politicians may look up to actors or artists, but they all look up to athletes."

This tall, bespectacled figure networks elegantly and effectively among sport's movers and shakers, keen that the foundation's money and his fame should be applied to good effect, but he confesses that no feeling can ever replicate the thrill of athletics and that great adrenalin surge of victory. "I'll never be able to replace that gladiator lifestyle I led on the track. It's one of the pleasant curses of being great at something, but at least this goes some way towards it."

BIOGRAPHY

Edwin Corley Moses

Born: 31 August 1955 in Dayton, Ohio.

Lives: Atlanta. Divorced with one son, Julian, aged nine, who is an 800m runner.

Education: Morehouse College, Atlanta; Pepperdine University, California. Masters degrees in physics, engineering and business administration.

Athletics achievements: Olympic 400m hurdles gold, 1976, 1984. Bronze 1988. World champion 1983, 1987. World record holder 1983-1992.

Other sport: Bronze medal in world bobsleigh event, 1990, seventh in 1991 Bobsleigh World Championships.

Also: IOC medical/ethics representative. Chairman of Laureus World Sports Academy and Sport for Good Foundation.