Olympic legend Michael Johnson explains reason for returning final gold medal

Legendary Olympic sprinter Michael Johnson has opened up about why he chose to hand back his fifth and final gold medal. The American athletics icon won five gold medals throughout his illustrious career.

Johnson struck gold across three successive Olympic Games, claiming victory in the 4x400metre relay at Barcelona 1992, sweeping the 200 and 400 metres at Atlanta 1996, and defending his 400m title at Sydney 2000 while recapturing the 4x400metre relay crown. However, his final triumph became mired in scandal more than a decade afterwards when team-mate Antonio Pettigrew confessed to taking performance-enhancing drugs.

As a result, Johnson surrendered the last of his five gold medals, with the 58-year-old now revealing how it feels to be labelled a four-time gold medallist and his reasoning behind the decision.

"I'm used to it now," he acknowledged to Jake Humphrey on the High Performance Podcast. "If you think about it, I won the fifth of my five gold medals in the Sydney 4x400m relay.

"I retired a five-time gold medallist, I think I'm going to be that for the rest of my life because I'm not going to win anymore, as I'm retired. I never thought I would end up going backwards; that thought never even entered my mind.

"So it was seven years later that Antonio Pettigrew, who had also retired, admitted in a grand jury investigation into the BALCO drugs scandal that he had been cheating and using performance-enhancing drugs during that time. He never tested positive, which tells you just how intricate that process was, where people were cheating but never got caught; had he not admitted, no one would have ever known.

"When he admitted to it, I was very disappointed as I was associated with that relay as one of the four team members. I was really upset because, with all due respect, Jake, we could have won that relay without you; we didn't need Antonio. We were so far ahead that we could have had anyone on there.

"I have always been outspoken about doping in our sport, still am, and so I just didn't want to have my name associated with that medal, so I gave it back. It wasn't a hard decision; I knew it was the right thing to do. I didn't want anything to do with that.

"A little bit harder in the sense that I knew they were going to come after that medal, and the US Olympic Committee were going to fight it. They would have had a better chance of fighting it if I were there.

"When I chose not to, it meant the other two team members were probably not going to have a good chance, but it was not that hard for me. I was very angry for a while because I'm now a four-time Olympic gold medallist, not five-time, and through no fault of my own.

"I didn't know Antonio Pettigrew that well; we were competitors first. He was for many years the No. 1-ranked 400-metre runner. He and I were battling. He was the world champion in 1991, so we were always competing.

"I thought I knew him well enough, so I was surprised and angry about that. And it got sadder because he ended up taking his own life.

"It is one of those things where doping in our sport is something that is always talked about. I think our sport does a much better job than most at policing and anti-doping.

"But our sport is more susceptible to it because there is such a low barrier to getting into it, and it's worth it to a lot of people who grow up in situations where they don't have much, and this could be their ticket out. I think people often think it is easy to go and make that choice, and I think his whole situation proves it is not that easy, and it's ended up devastating an entire family."