Cheating grows in sport

277

Unfortunately however, we have not been given the details of which athletes were involved such that we could rewrite the record books readily removing the names of those tainted by the use of performance enhancing drugs to be the best in the world.
The emergence of Marion Jones became something special because in the world of athletics the sprints are always the major attraction. Marion Jones came on the scene and showed that she was the first woman since Flo Jo to win the 100m and 200m at the same meet but to go even further and achieve medals in the relay and the long jump.
At the Sydney Olympics in 2000 Marion Jones emerged the star of the Games with five medals, three of them gold – 100m, 200m, 4 x 100m relay. She was a super star. Her performances were such that many saw her as the first woman athlete with the potential to eclipse the longstanding records of Flo Jo in the sprints.
It took some time however before the critics began to question whether Jones was on to something. With a far more invasive media than at the time of Flo Jo, Jones soon began to be hounded even as much as she was achieving stardom. The drug bogey was everywhere.
When her first husband, C.J Hunter tested positive in 2000 and had to leave the Sydney Olympics, the critics became even more suspicious of Jones. When her boyfriend, Tim Montgomery, admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs to break the 100m world record, she again denied ever knowingly used drugs.
Even when Jones tested positive a few years ago for EPO, she once more stated that she never knowingly took drugs to enhance her performance. She thanked God and her family and friends for staying the course with her through the difficult times when the media and others seemed so anxious to link her with drugs.

Shame
Now, Jones has done what so many other international athletes in so many other sporting disciplines have done, admitted to using drugs. Like many before her she apologised to her fans and her family. Of course she made no mention of her second husband, Barbados' Obadele Thompson.