Marion Jones

Marion Lois Jones is a former world champion American track and field athlete. She won five medals at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia but has since been stripped of every Olympic medal after admitting that she took performance-enhancing drugs. On January 11, 2008, Jones was sentenced to 6 months in jail for lying to federal agents. She began her sentence on March 7, 2008 and was released on September 5, 2008.

In October 2007, Jones admitted she doped, having taken steroids before the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics and acknowledged that she had, in fact, lied when she previously denied steroid use in statements to the press, to various sports agencies, and—most significantly—to two grand juries, one impaneled to investigate the BALCO “designer steroid” ring, and the other impaneled to investigate a check fraud ring involving many of the same parties from the BALCO case.

As a result of these admissions, Jones accepted a two-year suspension from track and field competition, and announced her retirement from track and field on October 5, 2007. The United States Anti-Doping Agency stated that the sanction “also requires disqualification of all her competitive results obtained after September 1, 2000, and forfeiture of all medals, results, points and prizes”. Jones pled guilty to lying to federal agents in the BALCO steroid investigation in the U.S. District Court.

Athletes are seen as role models who portray the many good characteristics a person should hold such as integrity, hard work, determination and sportsmanship. The use of drugs diminishes the value of the spirit of such events and it causes trouble not only to officials but also to participants. Furthermore, athletes should be aware that such big scale event are important and that the doping of drugs will not only affect them personally but also the country he or she is representing.