youth by Chris Gibbons.

Angela Bailey has an important message for Bermuda's youth. By Chris Gibbons Angela Bailey won't be competing at International Race Weekend but the message the former Canadian Olympic silver medallist will bring to the Island's young athletes is probably more important than any record time.

The Canadian 100-metre recordholder, who won a silver medal in the 4x100 relay team at the Los Angeles Games in 1984, has long been an outspoken advocate of drug-free competition. For years her complaints about drug use among athletes went unheeded until the Ben Johnson scandal exploded at the Seoul Olympics in 1988. Following the subsequent Dubin Inquiry in Canada, her Canadian record was returned to her after Angella Issajenko, who had bettered it, admitted taking performance-enhancing drugs.

"I wonder how she feels knowing she only ran 1 00th of a second faster by taking drugs,'' said Bailey at the time. "I know enough about chemistry and biology to realise that, even though you may not feel anything now, after time the problems start to happen.'' Bailey, who heads her curriculum vitae by stating "the following accomplishments are drug and cheating free'', was ranked as high as fourth in the world in 1983 and ranked in the top ten from 1981 through 1987 before retiring after the 1988 Games. Her 1987 time of 10.98 seconds was then the eighth fastest 100 metres in history by a woman. Bailey, now 30, who last visited Bermuda as a 15-year-old and recalls competing on the then grass track at National Stadium, is being brought back to the Island as a joint venture between the Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse and the Bermuda Track and Field Association.

Proceeds from the ADT 10K Fitness Walk, to be held at the same time as the ADT Bermuda 10K race, will go towards the Council's programmes and Bailey will lead a warm-up for participants before the event with Bermuda 800 metres recordholder, Steve Burgess. She will also team up with Burgess at a clinic for all students who competed in the Bank of Butterfield Mile trials, and act as the official starter for the Celebrity Run.

Currently completing her honours degree in psychology at University of Toronto, Bailey is acutely aware of her importance as a role model for all young people, not just athletes. "I like to start talking to kids at about 11. Certainly no later than 16. At 16 it's too late.'' Bailey, who was born in Coventry, England, says: "Even as a young child trying my first cigarette, I felt the entire experience was over-rated. I soon stopped the experimentation preferring instead to be in control of my own sensations.

"As a 17-year-old athlete I made a conscious choice not to take drugs when I was first approached by a US athletic recruiter who had a reputation for administering drugs to his athletes. He was also on record for coaching some of the world's best sprinters. However, at that moment, I decided to remain in Canada and to pursue my dreams without the aid of drugs. I knew that I would be cheating myself if I did not give myself a chance to see if I could make it on my own. When I achieved a personal lifelong goal, breaking the 11-second barrier which I was told could not be done without drugs, I became spiritually stronger and I knew I would never take drugs.'' And yet it was then Bailey says she came under increasing pressure to take drugs by people suggesting that if she could run that fast without drugs, imagine what she could do with them. "To have succumbed to the temptation of using drugs at that time would have made me no different than all those `winners' that were, in my eyes, only losers. It was important that I was happy and that I felt successful. I haveused this philosophy to get through the betrayal during the 1989 Dubin Inquiry and also to get through personal crises in my life.'' Although vindicated by the Dubin Inquiry, Bailey is still cynical about many of her former track rivals. "After watching the 1992 Olympics and some of the athletes I competed against, I'm convinced some of them are still on drugs.

Technology can't catch up with them.'' Angela Bailey warns kids as young as eleven about the dangers of drugs. "At 16 it's too late.'' Picture: Athletics Canada.

RG MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 1993