Pity Marion Jones. Now that she can no longer deny using steroids at the 2000 Olympics, the sprinter formerly known as the most successful female athlete in history has admitted cheating and announced her retirement from track and field-probably as part of a plea bargain in the ever-widening BALCO scandal. She will almost certainly lose all five of her Olympic medals and spend the next decade either in litigation or just begging forgiveness. But does she deserve it?
In her 2004 autobiography, Life in the Fast Lane, Jones defended her decision to train with Charlie Francis-the coach who introduced the Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson to steroids (a decision which led to Johnson being stripped of an Olympic gold medal)- with remarkable chutzpah. In emphatic red type, she declared “…I have always been unequivocal in my opinion. I am against performance-enhancing drugs. I have never taken them and I never will take them. Secure in that knowledge, it didn’t occur to me I should fear being associated with this expert coach who had spoken out against drugs and who had been involved with so many of my peers. The hypocrisy of it all was staggering.”
Jones joins a distinguished list of former cheats, one that includes several track and field stars, weightlifters, Tour de France cyclists and even professional baseball’s most controversial slugger, Barry Bonds. Fans recently voted to place an asterisk on the ball that earned Bonds hit for his record-breaking home run: a small but significant snub from the little people whose loyal attendance generates the huge payouts which so many athletes now think of as entitlements. Sadly, most sports journalists acknowledge that Bonds and Jones could probably have been as great if they had never cheated-both are astonishingly gifted natural athletes-but it is now a moot point to wonder how good they might have been. Both careers will end in disgrace.
Apart from disappointing fans and sponsors, these athletes incur a debt to their competitors-one that cannot be settled by apologies or lawsuits. Cheating deprives honest rivals of the success they deserve, and it often harms another athlete’s legacy. Consider the fate of Jones’s husband, for instance, the Barbadian sprinter Obadele Thompson. In the 2000 Olympics, Thompson lost the biggest race of his life to a cheat. Many West Indians will remember the disappointment of watching Kostas Kenteris stride past Ato Boldon and Obadele Thompson in the 200m final at those games. Discovering four years later that Kenteris was a cheat and that Boldon and Thompson should have won gold and silver medals was cold comfort so long after the fact. Their moment of glory had been stolen. Marion Jones distorted results in five other finals. And nothing she says or does now will ever adequately compensate the women who should have won her medals. Marion Jones was a cheat and a liar. Her success defrauded other athletes who played by the rules. She should be condemned unequivocally. Her hypocrisy is staggering.