Olympic track star Marion Jones yester day confessed to using steroids – in a most refreshing manner.
“I have betrayed your trust,” she told a press conference outside a White Plains federal court, after she pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators. “I have let my country down, and I have let myself down.”
Now if only we could hear such candor from the rest of the sports world.
Jones – who’d been dogged by drug rumors since her amazing five-medal performance at the 2000 Olympics – admitted to using the steroid “clear” for two years, starting in 1999.
Now she’ll be stripped of her three gold and two bronze medals; she also faces a six-month jail sentence.
Jones’ supplier was BALCO – the lab that reportedly also supplied baseball’s Barry Bonds (and some others) with the same “clear” steroid during his record-breaking 73-homer year of 2001.
Bonds has denied knowingly taking steroids – and reportedly used the same excuse in testimony as Jones: He used a substance that he thought was “flax seed oil.”
Right.
Sad to say, but all these developments turn the traditional presumption of innocence on its head.
Despite multiple denials, too many home-run leaders in the 1998-2003 era have been implicated in performance-enhancing scandals.
The dishonor roll is long, though there’s little point in running through it once again here.
Suffice it to say that a number of investigations are still under way, and there doubtless will be more star athletes standing before judges in the months – if not years – to come.
Marion Jones managed to salvage some personal dignity out of an otherwise untenable situation, and good for her.
Let’s see if the rest of the BALCO boys – and girls – have the class to finally tell the truth when their day comes.