Lewis dismisses medal return calls

"So he's going to sue hundreds of people? Would you expect him to say anything different?" Dr Wade Exum, the US Olympic Committee's director for drug control from 1991 to 2000, released more than 30,000 pages of documents to magazine Sports Illustrated last week that he says show Lewis, tennis player Mary Joe Fernandez and others tested positive but were still allowed to compete in Seoul.

The Orange County Register, a San Francisco newspaper, published a similar report based on papers it obtained.

Lewis added: "What Wade Exum is trying to do is unfortunate."

American Olympic chiefs have called Exum's accusations baseless.

Exum said Lewis tested positive three times at the 1988 Olympic trials for small amounts of banned stimulants found in cold medications.

Lewis was disqualified at first, but the decision was reversed after he appealed, claiming inadvertent use.

Lewis added: "I don't know what people are trying to make out of nothing because everyone was treated the same, so what are we talking about? I don't get it.".

He said a different climate existed in drug testing in 1988.

"At that time, if you had an offence once, then they usually wanted to check to see what the substance was, then they gave a warning. That's why there were so many people.

"Most of the names nobody knew, so it's not like they were picking people out and doping. That was the policy."

Lewis said there is still debate about whether cold medications give athletes an unfair advantage.

"There really is no pure evidence to show that it does something. It does nothing," he said.

"Now the policy has changed. You get three months probation on one of these now and the second time you get a suspension."