Olympic icon Michael Johnson has been called racist for merely questioning the timing methods used for the World Athletics Championships.
Johnson, who won the U.S. four Olympic gold medals in track and field, came under fire after he expressed skepticism over Nigerian runner Tobi Amusan recently setting a world record in the 100-meter hurdles semifinals with a time of 12.12 seconds.
“She was even faster in the wind-aided finals. She had previously finished fourth at the Olympics last year and fourth at the world championships in 2019,” noted Fox News.
For her part, Amusan said she did not expect to break a world record, which was previously held by American Keni Harrison.
“I believe in my abilities, but I was not expecting a world record at these championships,” she said. “The goal is always just to execute well and get the win.”
Johnson questioned if the hurdle times were correct and that the rounding was off.
“I don’t believe 100h times are correct. World record broken by .08! 12 PBs set. 5 National records set. And Cindy Sember quote after her PB/NR ‘I throughly I was running slow!’ All athletes looked shocked,” he wrote. “Heat 2 we were first shown winning time of 12.53. Few seconds later it shows 12.43. Rounding down by .01 is normal. .10 is not.”
Social media users immediately piled on Johnson, accusing him of being biased toward the Nigerian athlete.
Johnson later responded to the controversy when he said that his job as a commentator is to question accuracy and get at the truth.
“As a commentator my job is to comment. In questioning the times of 28 athletes (not 1 athlete) by wondering if the timing system malfunctioned, I was attacked, accused of racism, and of questioning the talent of an athlete I respect and predicted to win. Unacceptable. I move on,” he tweeted.