PARIS — Donovan Bailey, one of Canada’s greatest Olympians, was just 20 and not yet an elite sprinter when Ben Johnson disgraced himself and the nation by testing positive for a banned steroid at Seoul 1988.

Like all Canadians, Bailey was disappointed. As a black Canadian of Jamaican descent, like Johnson, Bailey said he was impacted personally. As the man who would emerge from the shadow cast by Johnson’s cheating to win 100-metre and 4×100-metre gold medals at Atlanta 1996, Bailey knew he could never afford even an unintentional misstep on or off the track.