Jackson: Hard graft, and not drugs, needed

COLIN JACKSON, the former triple World Championship winner, told an undercover reporter that it would be “unethical” to give controversial drugs to an actor training for a film.

The BBC pundit said that he would be uncomfortable if the substances were used in the project because he still had “an athlete’s conscience”.

Jackson, a 60m sprint and 110m hurdles specialist and 12-time gold medallist, was introduced to undercover reporters by his former agent, Robert Wagner, who was negotiating a deal to train a fictional Hollywood star for a role as a sprinter.

The agent had said Jackson would be happy to work on the project, which would involve the use of human growth hormone and testosterone.

But, during a meeting in Amsterdam last week, Jackson insisted only natural talent and “hard graft” were needed.

Jackson told how he had joined Wagner’s stable of athletes in 1997. He offered to dissuade Wagner from administering controversial substances, and remarked: “I’ve still got that athletics conscience on my brain.”

He told The Telegraph’s undercover reporters: “For me, on a personal level, it doesn’t make me feel great, because during my career I never used anything like that.

“And you know, I kind of look after some young people as well, and I would never advise them to do that. I always think hard work and graft is always the way, there’s no shortcuts. I just don’t think it’s needed. We can convince them to go without them. It’d be better.”

The 50-year old Welshman said of his former agent: “I think one of the best things about Robert if I’m honest is that he was very much a hard worker, and he had always your best interests at heart. Nobody’s a saint, and he’s fallen out with lots of athletes, as you can imagine, along the way. It’s just business.”