The two-time Olympic 400m hurdles champion on his fight against doping, his amazing unbeaten streak and meeting Nelson MandelaThe number 999 is burned into Edwin Moses’s psyche. He holds the greatest winning streak in athletics for, as a two-time Olympic champion over the 400m hurdles, Moses was unbeaten for nine years, nine months and nine days. From August 1977 to June 1987, he won 122 successive races. But the worldly
American, who is also a physicist and the chairman emeritus of the
United States Anti-Doping Agency, has spent enough time in other countries, like
Britain, to know that 999 is also the number to call in an emergency.
For much of his life the struggle against doping has felt like an emergency to Moses. It explains why he has been at the forefront of anti-doping for 32 years and why, even now, he is such a vocal proponent of clean sport. Moses has helped lead the clampdown on Russia’s state-sponsored doping programme. He continues to monitor the situation in regard to a likely blanket ban on all
Russian athletes competing in this summer’s Tokyo Olympics, even as “authorised neutrals”, and he is heartened that last week World Athletics hardened its stance. Real changes and genuine contrition needs to be shown by the Russian Athletics Federation to avoid the ban on all its individual athletes. This is a fight Moses has waged for decades.