Tearful US track star Marion Jones said Friday she had broken
the trust of her fans and announced she was retiring from the sport
after admitting in court to taking steroids.
Marion Jones lowers her
head while speaking to the media after leaving the US Federal
Courthouse in White Plains, New York October 5, 2007. Triple
Olympic champion Jones announced her retirement from athletics on
Friday moments after pleading guilty to lying to federal
investigators about her use of steroids.
"It is with a great amount of shame that I stand before you to
tell you that I have betrayed ... your trust," the Olympic gold
medal winner told a crowd gathered outside the courtroom in White
Plains, New York.
Once ranked among the greatest athletes of all time, Jones has
seen the clouds of doping gather until they have irrevocably
tainted what should have been a glorious career.
Jones, 31, admitted in a US federal court that she had used the
designer steroid THG from September 2000 to July 2001, ending years
of angry denials of doping allegations.
Jones' confession came as she pleaded guilty to lying to a
federal agent about her drug use, charge that could see her
jailed.
The admission tarnishes Jones' greatest triumph - a five-medal
performance at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, which ran from September
13-October 1 of that year.
It also made a mockery of Jones' vehement denials of doping over
the past four years, as a woman once held up as the epitome of
strength and grace tried to distance herself from disgraced
associates and from evidence collected in the BALCO steroid
distribution scandal that linked her to doping.
Long before she became the most successful female athlete at a
single Games by winning three gold medals and two bronze at Sydney,
Jones was recognized as an extraordinary sports talent.
At nine years old, she was a national sprint champion and at 16
her results earned her a spot as an alternate on the US 4x100m
relay squad for the Barcelona Olympics.
She declined that berth, saying she preferred her first Olympic
gold to come not as a mere extra in the heats but in a true finals
victory.
Multi-talented, she was a standout basketball player at the
University of North Carolina, where she studied communications and
journalism, disciplines that helped provide the basis of her
facility in dealing with the press.
A broken foot in 1995 prevented her from competing in the 1996
Atlanta Olympics, and in the wake of that setback she decided to
focus on athletics and forego a possible basketball career.
Guided by C.J. Hunter, the shot putter she married in 1998, and
Trevor Graham, the coach she began working with in April 1997,
Jones reigned on the sprint track and in the long jump, posting 41
straight victories from 1997-98 in the combined disciplines.
Jones was virtually untouchable in 1998. In May she clocked a
time of 10.71sec to become the second-fastest woman of all time
over 100m, trailing only world record-holder Florence Griffith
Joyner. Jones improved her best later that year with a time of
10.65.
Jones also established her personal best in the long jump in May
of 1998 with a leap of 7.31m, good enough to put her among the top
10 performers in history. In September, she became the
second-fastest woman ever in the 200m with a time of 21.62.
By the time Jones was being built up as the face of the Sydney
Games, she owned three world titles, winning 100m and 4x100m world
gold in 1997 and the 100m world title in 1999.
US broadcaster NBC vowed to follow her bid for an unprecedented
five gold medals at Sydney "like a mini-series," but even as she
triumphed the first clouds appeared on the horizon when Olympic
officials announced that Hunter had tested positive for the steroid
nandrolone earlier in the year.
Jones said she supported her husband, who never competed in
Sydney and was later banned, and went on to complete her own
historic Olympic campaign.
In 2003, Jones and the new man in her life, 100m world record
holder Tim Montgomery, became the "fastest couple on the
planet."
The pair had a son in 2003, Tim jnr, Jones absenting herself
from the track that season.
By the time she returned in 2004, the BALCO investigation had
led to the discovery of the so-called designer steroid THG, and
linked the names of many prominent athletes, including Jones and
Montgomery, to the lab's founder Victor Conte.
Montgomery was eventually stripped of his world record and
banned based on evidence collected in the BALCO investigation, but
insinuations about Jones - including allegations by ex-husband
Hunter and Conte - repeatedly failed to stick.
She herself went on the attack, suing Conte over his doping
accusations against her and vowing that she had "never, ever" taken
banned drugs.
The battle appeared to take a toll, however, as Jones struggled
on the track and saw invitations to prestigious meetings dwindle. A
promising 2006 campaign was cut short by another doping incident,
when it took a backup "B" sample test to clear her of using the
endurance boosting hormone EPO.
USOC wants Jones to return Olympic medal
Marion Jones should immediately step forward and return the
Olympic medals she won while competing in violation of the rules,
US Olympics Committee Chairman (USOC)Peter Ueberroth said on
Friday.
Jones' admission that she used steroids "is long overdue and
underscores the shame and dishonor that are inherent with
cheating," Ueberroth said in a statement e-mailed to Xinhua.
After years of denying that she used banned substances, Jones
finally decided to come forward and admit the truth earlier in the
day.
"Like any athlete who breaks the rules, Ms. Jones has earned
whatever punishment the legal and anti-doping systems hand out,"
Ueberroth said.
"Her acceptance of responsibility does not end with today's
admission, however. As further recognition of her complicity in
this matter, Ms. Jones should immediately step forward and return
the Olympic medals she won while competing in violation of the
rules," Ueberroth said.
USOC Chief Executive Officer Jim Scherr also said Jones'
admission marked a turning point in the fight against doping in
sport, but it will not end here.
"In this new era of cooperation between legal authorities and
anti-doping agencies, it is no longer a question of 'if' you will
be caught, but rather 'when' and how severe the consequences will
be," Scherr said.
He expressed the USOC's commitment to protect the integrity of
sport and the health and well-being of the overwhelming majority of
athletes who choose to compete clean.
"Under no circumstance will doping ever be tolerated by the
United States Olympic Committee, and we are committed to making
certain the team we take to the 2008 Beijing Games is clean," he
said.
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(Agencies via CRI.cn, Xinhua News Agency October 6, 2007)
