“HELLO. You’re calling from England? Really? Are you enjoying a nice cup of tea?” The voice is deep, transatlantic and clown-like. “You make sure you say hello to the Queen for me. And tell the people in Britain to tune in on July 31 and they can watch it on the telly. That’ll be Ben Johnson and all the eight from the 1988 Olympic final back in Seoul. This race is serious, it isn’t a joke. They’ll all be there. I ’m telling you, it’s for real.”

Meet Morris Chrobotek, Toronto lawyer and the last man to attempt to prove Johnson’s innocence. That may not be the most credible vantage point from which to start but it is Chrobotek who swears that in the Seoul Olympic stadium this summer, three weeks before the Olympic 100 metres final in Athens, he will be staging a rerun of athletics’ darkest moment, with $2 million (about £1.1 million) of prize-money awaiting the winner.

Believe him? There are two million reasons not to — and that is even before you go into the ethics of turning the most infamous crime in the history of sport into a seven-figure circus. Yet when Chrobotek says that seven of the eight are in training, he is spot on. Linford Christie is training, but that is because he has never stopped. Carl Lewis could not be less interested in serious exercise, but the other six have signed up to the gig and are out there pounding the track.

“I’ve given him my word,” Ray Stewart, who was promoted from eighth to seventh in that 1988 final after Johnson’s positive drugs test, said. “The last I spoke to him (Chrobotek) was last Friday. It’s a chance to make some extra money. And I’m in good shape. I still play Tuesdays and Fridays in the Fort Worth soccer league.”

“I’d love to do it,” Dennis Mitchell, who moved from fifth to fourth, said. “It’ll give me the chance to run again and it’ll be fun. I’ve talked to the organisers and they’ve sent contracts out. As far as I’m concerned, it’s happening.”

“I think it’s a good thing and I’m excited about it,” Calvin Smith, who was shunted up into the bronze-medal position, said. Smith started training again a month ago and is looking for a pre-Seoul schedule of track meets to get race fit.

“I have yet to find out the full details of Seoul and it has to be worth my time,” he said, “but it’s less (about) the money than it is the opportunity to run against these guys again. Drugs gave us the wrong result in Seoul. I’ll be going in with a type of revenge in my mind — to prove who is the best.”

Also signed up are Desai Williams, Johnson’s old Canada team-mate, Robson da Silva, the Brazilian, and, of course, Johnson himself. The plan, according to Chrobotek at least, is that they will line up in the same lanes as 16 years ago, that $2 million will go to the winner, $1 million to second place, $500,000 to third, with the rest receiving appearance money only. He is also looking to line up an undercard of events — “something else that has a sentimental feel to it”. “It’s funny,” he added, “but a lot of the athletes are saying, ‘I’m not running unless everyone’s drugs-tested.’ ”

Funny indeed, but more on that later. There will be some athletics fans who will have already put this newspaper down in search of the sick bag. Others will claim that this event could not possibly happen and, without Lewis or Christie, they would almost certainly be right. But Chrobotek is quite chipper about Christie because, after Christie’s initial public refusal, he claims that they have begun negotiating.

The news from Nuff Respect, Christie’s management company, is that they spoke to Chrobotek twice last week. “Linford, at the moment, is not participating,” was the word two days ago. “We haven’t had any more information on what is involved. The situation hasn’t changed. In a couple of weeks, maybe it will.”

Lewis, who always claimed the moral high ground, will surely be the toughest signature of all, especially with Joe Douglas, his manager, saying that “the possibility of this race happening are one in a million”. Yet, at the same time, Douglas disclosed that Chrobotek had been sending him e-mails. “He’s been in touch, but the terms were nothing I was happy with,” Douglas said. Which suggests that Lewis could, perhaps, be bought? “If someone were to present him with a business situation that was acceptable, he might.”

Encouraging, then, but Douglas makes two further points. One: “Carl’s always fit, but he’s not training and he’s had a fungus in his lungs, so he hasn’t done anything for two months.” Two: “Even if Carl wanted to do it, I’d tell him not to. He’s moved on with his life. As he said to me: ‘Joe, I’m an actor, not a runner any more.’ ”

So will it happen? Maybe. But while Chrobotek is not short on conversation, the identity of his mystery South Korean backers is one topic he will not discuss. Come to the press conference in New York in February, he says, and all will be revealed.