Marion Jones shamed in drug scandal
Unbelievable. Is there anyone in the world of track and field whom the general public can now trust? Is this the way sports is going, with athletes winning our hearts with their performances only to be stripped of their titles and accolades at some point down the line?
Marion Jones, the former track and field star who admitted Friday in federal court that she used performance-enhancing drugs leading to the 2000 Sydney Olympics, relinquished the five medals she won at those Games to the United States Anti-Doping Agency yesterday.
One of Jones’s gold medals came in the 4×400-meter relay. Peter Ueberroth, chairman of the U.S.O.C., said that Jones’s teammates in that relay would probably have to return their medals because the race had been won unfairly. He said that he hoped they would return them voluntarily before the I.O.C. acted to force them to do so.
At least one of Jones’s medals could be awarded to Katerina Thanou of Greece, who was the runner-up to Jones in the 100 meters, but who finished serving a two-year drug ban in December.
