Last week marked a complete turning point for Marion Jones, a woman who was once held as the best female athlete America ever produced. Her total haul of five medals at the Sydney Olympics of 2000 shattered Florence Griffith Joyner’s Seoul Olympics four medals record. But like Jones, Joyner, who came to be known as ‘Flo Jo’ because of her incredible speed, had the tail end of her career dogged by allegations of relying on performance enhancing drugs. ‘Flo Jo’ was to die ‘accidentally’ in her sleep 10 years after her Olympics feat. Up until now, no one can say, for sure, if she ever or never used drugs while sprinting or jumping for or in America. That’s that for the once fabulous ‘Flo Jo’.
Marion Jones is the subject of this discourse. Recalling her full confidence when she addressed a press briefing last year denying any involvement with banned drugs, Jones was a mere shadow of herself last week as she tearfully admitted using steroids prior to the 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics. Her case has, over the years, generated so much controversy that at some point it almost truncated her career. Last year, for example, she was forced to withdraw from Weltklasse Golden League meet in Switzerland following the heat generated by a Washington Post report that a sample of her urine, taken at the USA Track and Field Championship in Indianapolis on June 23, 2006 tested positive for a banned performance-enhancer, Erythropoietin or EPO. Even as she claimed her withdrawal was for reasons she termed ‘personal’, Jones was to fiercely deny this drug allegation and successfully fool everyone through her lawyer Howard Jacobs. Spurred by the experience of representing other accused athletes in the past, including her former lover Tim Montgomery and cyclist Floyd Landis, the lawyer effectively cleared her of the charges and announced to the world that her ‘B’ sample had tested negative.
Before going ahead to join in crucifying her lets try to find who she is (or she was) and who she was ‘hanging’ out with. Born on October 12, 1975 as Marion Jones-Thompson, her journey to sporting stardom began in high school. For four years running, it was reported, she held the 100-meter title of the California state championship while she represented Rio Mesa and Thousand Oaks high schools. Although eye brows were then raised leading to doping charges, lawyer-to-the-stars Johnnies Cochran saw to it that her name was cleared of any indictment. Rejecting an invitation as an alternate in the 4x100 relays to the 1992 Olympics, Jones accepted a full scholarship to the University of North Carolina in Basketball, another of her favourite. Her impact was felt full well as she significantly played a role in their NCAA championship victory as a freshman. But she soon dumped basketball to concentrate on track and field, due to an injury that cost her a place in the Olympics team of 1996. Her first major international competition was a huge success as she won the 1997 World Youth Championship in Athens. She was, however, not so successful in the long jump. At the 1999 World Championships, Jones gave a good account of herself. Although her attempt to win four medals led to her ghastly exit from the competition after she sustained an injury, she, nonetheless, won one gold and one bronze in the 100-meter and long jump events respectively.
The Sydney 2000 Olympics was to become the peak of her athletics success just as today it turns out, ironically, to be where the journey of her tumble from ‘Olympus’ began. From the onset Jones made it clear, in the full presence of world media, she wanted every attention she possibly could get when she announced that she was eyeing five gold medals. She instantly became a media figure and one to beat or watch beating others. In the end she had a total haul of five medals – three golds and two bronzes. Even though she was two gold medals short of her dream it was an unparalleled feat. But her story did not end there.
From 1998, long before her Olympics triumph, up until now Marion Jones went through at least three serious relationships with three different men. Two of these men, at different times, married her, while one only had a strong affair with her that produced a child. All three men were (and one still is) in the field of sports. Also, all three but one had had their careers tainted by doping scandals.
Starting with shot putter C.J. Hunter, her first husband, the clock ticked to a full stop for his career after he was banned from the 2000 Olympics when he tested positive for Nandrolone. The final blow for him (even though he was sacked, earlier, by his University of North Carolina employers when he, a coach, opted to marry her, his student) was their divorce in 2002. That sealed his fate in her story, it seemed, until he bounced back ‘letting the cat out of the bag’.
The next year Marion Jones had a baby boy, named Tim Montgomery Jr., with boyfriend Tim Montgomery. He was himself a star sprinter who, as it later emerged, cheated his way to victory. He was sent to the trash bin of history after admitting to using banned drugs. That earned him a ban and his so-called 100 meters world record.
Early in 2004 Jones married another star athlete, Obadele Thompson, a Barbadian who won a bronze medal at 2000 Sydney Olympics. Unlike her two earlier lovers, Thompson is yet to be linked to any drug-use allegation.
Interestingly, it was her ex-husband Hunter that kindled the major controversy that is, today, consuming Jones. He confused to using steroid and swore that he saw her inject herself drugs during the Sydney Olympics. His confession led to, in 2005, a major scandal as her coach Trevor Graham, former boyfriend Tim Montgomery, sprinters Chryste Gaines and Kelli White amongst others were implicated. While most of them accepted their guilt and were penalised Jones was vehement in denying the allegation. And as I recall seeing her on television, she was too confident to be faulted as she repeatedly said “I never, ever used any performance enhancing drugs.”
Apart from affairs with Hunter and Montgomery, two disgraced cheats, the influences of speed coach Graham and Charlie Francis, who confessed to assisting notorious athletics cheat Ben Johnson, need to be examined. Whereas she denied ever using banned drugs Hunter insisted she did and that Graham’s expertise in procuring the drugs for her was nothing but perfect. With his Mexican connection, Hunter alleged, it was always easy. Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) was to become a major source, according to Hunter, as Graham continued procuring drugs for Jones through founder Victor Conte. Conte was to later admit this to journalist Martin Bashir. In addition, BALCO, Conte said, supplied many other athletes including Zhanna Pintusevich-Block, the Ukrainian who caused a major upset when she beat Jones at the 2001 World Championship in the 100 meter race.
Even after being implicated repeatedly by close associates, Marion Jones remained in complete denial of her sins. Although she also trained with Ben Johnson’s trainer, a man responsible for the latter’s total evaporation to insignificance, this evidence, as circumstantial as it was, still could not help in pinning her to admit guilt. Her waterloo came when BALCO was involved in a drug-cum-fraud scandal prompting federal investigations. She, even at the risk of being sent to jail if found out, lied to investigator and continued to do so until recently.
Her sharp u-turn last week came as a shock to everyone. What shocked me most, once an ardent fan, was how that confidence she once arrogantly wore as a trademark in denial completely vanished. She even shed tears proving that she, even, has her soft side. But beyond tears, even crocodiles tears, what does this mean for everyone, including Jones, who today buries her face in shame?
Writing in the International Herald Tribune of Tuesday, 9 October 2007, Christopher Clarey argues that Marion Jones’ apology is insufficient as she fell short of mentioning those she cheated in the competitions she won while using banned drugs. While it was clear she cheated and deceived games organisers, tax-payers who funded the games and even her fans who, in most cases often rose to her defence, and her own friends and family, the real victims, as Clarey argues, were (and still are) her rivals. One of such victims are Bahamas’ Pauline Davis-Thompson, who was seconds behind her at the Sydney Olympics and ended up with a silver medal, and top athletes of today who will no doubt be affected by this scandal rocking sports, especially sprinting. The public, including me, will definitely continue treat, onwards, every top athlete with suspicion until proven otherwise.
One big lesson for Marion Jones, now that she has been intimated by the long arms of the law into admitting guilt after lying for nearly a decade, is that there’s nothing comparable to success earned by means of hard work. It’s so plain and effortless afterwards. It gives one a total reassurance and permanent self-confidence. Most importantly, no one can ever take it away from you or try rewriting history. This is in sharp contrast to stolen success, as it applies to those enjoyed by Ben Johnson and Marion Jones etc that were, in any case, short-lived. Jones, like all others before and after her, had doubtlessly enjoyed stardom and all the glamour it came with. She successfully cheated her way to success, perhaps right from high school, and caused untold grief to people who, possibly, had worked hard but lost to her in different competitions. And worst of all, she only admitted when she knew the threats ‘are for real’. It’s now time for reckoning and she is today not only going to be consigned to such a low ebb in the annals of history as she never imagined, but will bear the knowledge of her crime for the rest of her life. She will remain a reference point for successive generations, like Ben Johnson has been since his 1988 disgrace, and would-be dopes.
Meanwhile, she still has a cause to be thankful to God. Her case is quite unlike that of ‘Flo Jo’, who did not even live to tell her own story and possibly clear her name. She was, in deed, never found out, but even in death it remained a subject of controversy that she used performance enhancing drugs. It was even alleged that it was a catalyst in her death.
Beyond Marion Jones, there’s also a huge lesson to be learned by all: it doesn’t pay to cheat, not only in the field of sport but in all aspects of life.
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