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EDITORIAL - Jamaica's interest and the Marion Jones confession
published: Thursday | October 11, 2007
Jamaica has more than a passing interest in Marion Jones' confession of being an athletics drug-cheat and what will surely be her disqualification from her placings at the 2000 Sydney Games. She has already, quite appropriately, returned the five medals she won.
By dishonest means, however, she has denied several athletes the ultimate achievement of hearing their national anthem being played at the Olympics. But for Jones, Jamaica could well have gained not silver but gold in the women's 4x400 metres relay in Sydney. Her third-leg run was decisive. It produced the fastest 400 metres split of all the runners and handed the Americans a 15-metre lead going into the final leg.
Jones, as an American megastar, has been the most familiar female face in athletics since she became the first woman to win five medals at one Olympics, with three gold and two bronze medals at the Sydney Games in 2000. Now in a stunning fall from grace, Jones has, by her own admission, been exposed as just another drug-cheat.
The news has rocked the very foundation of athletics in the United States. Jones, based on her performance in Sydney, was named the United States Olympic Committee's (USOC) Sportswoman of the Year for 2000. She had also in the past collected the Jesse Owens Award, named after perhaps the greatest ever American track and field athlete, no fewer than three times. For the USOC, therefore, her exposure as a dishonest athlete is a big slap in the face.
Before last Friday, Jones has always vehemently denied taking performance-enhancing drugs and many were willing to believe her. After all, she was a high school star who appeared blessed with immense natural talent. After seven years, time has finally caught up with her.
She has, less than a year before the Beijing Olympic Games in China, done serious damage to a sport which is still not fully recovered from the disqualification of Canada's Ben Johnson and the stripping of his title after he won the 1988 Seoul Olympics 100 metres in 9.79 seconds.
The Jamaican-born Johnson was then found guilty of taking the anabolic steroid stanozolol. Jones, significantly, still does not have a proven positive test for any steroid. She admitted to drug-taking only after pleading guilty to a charge of lying to United States Government investigators. In court last Friday, Jones admitted for the first time that she had been given the then little known synthetic steroid, tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), in 2000. Known in athletics circles as 'The clear', THG is a steroid made by a simple chemical modification from another banned anabolic steroid. It was called the 'clear' because it could not then be detected by the usual testing procedures employed by the International Association of Athletics Federations and the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
It is our hope that the IOC will not only strip Jones of her medals but will arrange a suitable ceremony to award gold medals to Jamaica's Sandie Richards, Catherine Scott-Pomales, Deon Hemmings and Lorraine Graham-Fenton who performed so gallantly in the 4x400 metres final.
Justice also demands that others who lost out because of the dishonesty of the American, including Jamaica's Merlene Ottey who was fourth in the Sydney 100m won by Jones, be rewarded with their medals.
The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.
published: Thursday | October 11, 2007
Jamaica has more than a passing interest in Marion Jones' confession of being an athletics drug-cheat and what will surely be her disqualification from her placings at the 2000 Sydney Games. She has already, quite appropriately, returned the five medals she won.
By dishonest means, however, she has denied several athletes the ultimate achievement of hearing their national anthem being played at the Olympics. But for Jones, Jamaica could well have gained not silver but gold in the women's 4x400 metres relay in Sydney. Her third-leg run was decisive. It produced the fastest 400 metres split of all the runners and handed the Americans a 15-metre lead going into the final leg.
Jones, as an American megastar, has been the most familiar female face in athletics since she became the first woman to win five medals at one Olympics, with three gold and two bronze medals at the Sydney Games in 2000. Now in a stunning fall from grace, Jones has, by her own admission, been exposed as just another drug-cheat.
The news has rocked the very foundation of athletics in the United States. Jones, based on her performance in Sydney, was named the United States Olympic Committee's (USOC) Sportswoman of the Year for 2000. She had also in the past collected the Jesse Owens Award, named after perhaps the greatest ever American track and field athlete, no fewer than three times. For the USOC, therefore, her exposure as a dishonest athlete is a big slap in the face.
Before last Friday, Jones has always vehemently denied taking performance-enhancing drugs and many were willing to believe her. After all, she was a high school star who appeared blessed with immense natural talent. After seven years, time has finally caught up with her.
She has, less than a year before the Beijing Olympic Games in China, done serious damage to a sport which is still not fully recovered from the disqualification of Canada's Ben Johnson and the stripping of his title after he won the 1988 Seoul Olympics 100 metres in 9.79 seconds.
The Jamaican-born Johnson was then found guilty of taking the anabolic steroid stanozolol. Jones, significantly, still does not have a proven positive test for any steroid. She admitted to drug-taking only after pleading guilty to a charge of lying to United States Government investigators. In court last Friday, Jones admitted for the first time that she had been given the then little known synthetic steroid, tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), in 2000. Known in athletics circles as 'The clear', THG is a steroid made by a simple chemical modification from another banned anabolic steroid. It was called the 'clear' because it could not then be detected by the usual testing procedures employed by the International Association of Athletics Federations and the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
It is our hope that the IOC will not only strip Jones of her medals but will arrange a suitable ceremony to award gold medals to Jamaica's Sandie Richards, Catherine Scott-Pomales, Deon Hemmings and Lorraine Graham-Fenton who performed so gallantly in the 4x400 metres final.
Justice also demands that others who lost out because of the dishonesty of the American, including Jamaica's Merlene Ottey who was fourth in the Sydney 100m won by Jones, be rewarded with their medals.
The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.