Now, seven years later, comes the disappointment. According to the Washington Post Jones has written to friends admitting to using steroids in the two-year run-up to the 2000 Games. “I want to apologize for all this,” she wrote, according to the Post, quoting from one letter. “I am sorry for disappointing you in so many ways.” Jones, who through recent years has steadfastly denied using any performance-enhancing drugs, pled guilty in federal court today to lying to federal agents about her drug use as well as to a second charge related to financial wrongdoing by a former boyfriend, sprinter Tim Montgomery.
Jones had been one of the biggest names linked to BALCO, the San Francisco-area drug dispensary posing as a nutritional lab, after a raid by law enforcement officials in 2003. The investigation not only revealed her name as a client but also produced logs with her initials that appeared to detail an extensive drug regimen. Jones, like Barry Bonds and dozens of other notable athletes, testified before a federal grand jury investigating BALCO.
Before Sydney, Jones had averted the kind of suspicions that dogged so many star athletes in her sport, if only because she had always been such a dominant sprinter. As a California schoolgirl she routinely won titles against older runners. But she did run afoul of her sport’s drug policies as a teenager, receiving a suspension and facing a four-year ban after missing a random drug test when she failed to inform officials of her whereabouts. Lawyer Johnnie Cochran successfully argued for her reinstatement.
Even though Jones fell short of her Olympic goals, Sydney should have been the crowning moment in her career. But most reporters wound up marveling less at her achievements than at how she accomplished so much despite distractions. The biggest was her husband at that time, C. J. Hunter, who had qualified for the Olympics in the shot put but had been sidelined by injury. However, early in the Olympic competition, it was revealed that he had actually tested positive for steroids. In the middle of her competition, Jones took an awkward stab at a “stand by my man” performance at a press conference. But it was hard to fathom how she could live and train with her husband without being aware of his transgressions or, worse, cheating too. And those questions began to overshadow her performance.
Now the questions center on what will become of the medals she did win. In 1988 Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson was stripped of his 100m gold medal from that year’s Seoul Games after he tested positive for drugs. His medal was given to Carl Lewis, the American who had originally taken silver. At the moment, the International Olympic Committee has not made a ruling about Jones’s medals. Before any decisions are made, there will be a series of hearings with the International Association of Athletics Federation and the IOC’s disciplinary committee, which could take years. If the IOC does decide to give Jones’s medals to her runner-ups, one of them will land in the hands of Ekaterini Thanou, a Greek sprinter who finished second to Jones in the 100m in Sydney and was herself involved in a doping scandal at the 2004 Athens Olympics after she failed to show up for a drug test. She withdrew from the games and was later suspended. The gold for the 200m might then be handed off to Pauline Davis-Thompson of the Bahamas, who hasn’t been implicated in any drug scandal.
According to the Post, Jones said that she got the steroids from her coach, Trevor Graham, and continued to use them until she stopped working with him in late 2002. Graham has pleaded not guilty to three counts of lying to federal agents in the BALCO investigation and is scheduled to go on trial next month. Jones reportedly said she unwittingly used a steroid rub known as “the clear” after her trainer told her it was flaxseed oil. According to transcripts leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle, Bonds also told the BALCO grand jury that he used “the clear” after his trainer told him it was flaxseed oil; another grand jury is considering perjury charges against Bonds for his original testimony.
Jones, according to the Post, says she panicked and lied when federal investigators questioned her about the substance. But it’s hard to use panic as an excuse for years of public denials at every turn since. Victor Conte, the head of BALCO who went to prison in the case, has repeatedly fingered Jones as a doper who cheated her way to glory in Sydney.
After those games Jones never again rose to the same performance level. Four years later she failed to make the U.S. Olympic team in either of the sprints, the 100 and 200 meters, that she had won in Sydney, though in Athens she did compete in the long jump, finishing fifth, and ran on a 4X100 relay team that, because of a botched baton pass, never finished. But the sprinter still commanded big appearance fees on the track circuit abroad. Last year, however, she tested positive for the performance-enhancing drug EPO. While a second test cleared her, she was forced to withdraw from a number of major track meets.
By then the tarnish on her reputation had grown into a major blight. Montgomery, Jones’s former boyfriend who is the father of her child, was also ensnared in the BALCO case. He was banned from competition for two years and stripped of his former world record in the 100 meters. He would later plead guilty in connection with a bank fraud that also involved Jones’s agent and new coach. And, as she did back in 2000 with her husband, Jones kept playing the innocent whose sole flaw was apparently very bad judgment in men. Her second guilty plea reportedly involves a check she received from Montgomery, a money-laundering transaction in connection with that financial fraud.
Jones will almost certainly be stripped of her Olympic medals, and she is finished as a serious track and field athlete. Having covered Jones and spent considerable time with her, I confess it is tempting to cut her some slack. She always projected such vulnerability, making it far easier to cast her as a victim than a villain.
But while there may be good explanations for Jones’s actions, and her betrayal of her public, there are no good excuses. Jones had always been the best, but she clearly didn’t trust her talent to prove it on her sport’s biggest stage. Now she’s just another cheat who will forever stand as a symbol of sullied dreams.
