Sports > October 18, 2007

By Nick Oliphant | Contributing writer

Name one female track and field athlete. Just one. Although track does not receive the glamour of say, football or basketball, my guess is that most of you who follow sports would answer, “Marion Jones.”

She has been the most recognizable female Olympic athlete for the past decade.

However, her past seven competitive years have now been erased from existence. This punishment is a result of her guilty plea to lying about her use of performance enhancing drugs, which she now admits began before the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia.

Well actually, the records haven’t been completely erased. Everything after Sept. 1, 2000, now reads “Disqualified” as her result.

While news of her admission is hardly a shock (an ex-boyfriend and ex-husband have both faced bans from the sport in recent years for using performance-enhancing drugs), it does present numerous problems for the International Olympic Committee and International Association of Athletics Federations. The IOC and the IAAF now must decide how to treat Jones’ relay teammates of the 2000 Olympics. These women are clean athletes who may potentially have to pay for their association with the now-banned Jones. Also affected are relay teams from other countries who played by the rules and competed fairly. France finished fourth in the 400-meter relay at the 2000 Olympics but must look ahead at the bronze-medal winning Americans who now have three members of that team serving bans for doping. Now they all know how Hank Aaron feels. And that point leads to the really intriguing part of this story. Other athletes have been accused of performanceenhancing, and some have even been caught. But for the most part, these athletes only suffer personal losses in the form of a suspension or a fine. The San Francisco Giants will never have to forfeit any games if Barry Bonds ever admits to using steroids. His teammates will never lose a paycheck or championship recognition because of what he may have done. But the Olympics are different. There is no question that the bronze-winning 400-meter relay team, as well as the 1,600-meter relay team that took home the gold, received a competitive advantage because Jones and others took it upon themselves to cheat. But there is also no proof that clean members of the team knew that Jones and others were gaining an unfair advantage.

Relay teammate Jearl Miles-Clark probably best sums up the situation by saying, “She made mistakes and now has to pay for them. Unfortunately, others may pay for those mistakes too.”

What Jones did was not a mistake so much as it was intentional cheating, but she is still most likely to end up taking innocent people down with her.

U.S. Olympic Committee chairman Peter Ueberroth has said that he believes all medals should be returned, and an official decision may come from the IOC when it convenes in December.

Marion Jones’ disgraceful decisions have forever impacted the lives of her innocent teammates and tainted a sport that already had severe credibility issues. She has cost well-trained and ethical athletes the chance to eternally be remembered as champions. And if someday the 2000 French relay team is awarded a bronze medal for their performance in the 400 meter relay, Marion Jones can look to those athletes for a lesson in what it means to be part of a team.