Olympic Champion Acknowledges Use Of Steroids

Hat tip to reader Aaron for alerting me yesterday evening to this news. Marion Jones, former track star and one of the world's most famous female athletes, is expected to plead guilty today at the U.S. District Court in White Plains, New York to two counts of lying to federal agents about her use of performance-enhancing drugs and an unrelated financial matter. The doping admission would end years of denial and will likely lead to Jones being stripped of her record five medals (three gold and two bronze) that she got in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia and jail time.

The 31-year-old athlete would become the first athlete convicted in the cases arising out of the four-year Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative investigation that has fueled a continuing series of steroid scandals in sports. Five men who manufactured, marketed or supplied the drugs to athletes have pleaded guilty, and three of them have served time in prison. Barry Bonds, baseball’s career home run leader, is still under investigation in the case, and his former personal trainer, Greg Anderson, remains in jail for contempt of court for refusing to testify about Mr. Bonds’s suspected steroid use.

Jones is expected to plead guilty to one count of making false statements to federal agents about her use of performance-enhancing drugs and one count of making false statements to federal agents in connection with a separate check fraud case. “It’s the destruction of a heroine of the day,” said Dick Pound, the chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency and a Canadian member of the International Olympic Committee. “It’s sad at one level, but it’s still tawdry cheating at another level.” Mr. Pound, who said that the I.O.C. had opened a file on Jones in 2001, said that her Olympic medals would be revoked.

Jones wrote to family and friends in a letter that she unwittingly took the designer steroid THG, called "the clear", that was supplied by her coach for two years beginning in 1999 and lied to federal agents about it in 2003. For years, Jones has repeatedly denied using banned substances and said she passed a lie detector test administered by a former FBI special agent. But she has been contradicted by other testimony to federal agents.

Her former husband, the Olympic shot-putter C. J. Hunter, has said that he injected Jones and watched her inject herself with the performance-enhancing drug EPO. Victor Conte Jr., the Balco founder, who has been convicted in the case, has said that he supplied her with a undetectable designer steroid in the weeks leading up to the 2000 Olympics. A trainer, Angel Guillermo Heredia, has said he also supplied her with drugs and a doping plan.

Jones told investigators that she lied to protect herself and her former coach, Trevor Graham, who is awaiting trial in on charges that he lied to federal agents. The trial is scheduled to begin November 26. Jones said Graham had told her the chemical was flaxseed oil, but she later realized it was a steroid. Jones is listed as a potential witness against Graham.

Jones will probably do a maximum of six months in prison. The Washington Post reported yesterday that Jones has told family and close friends that she will be sentenced in three months under a plea bargain agreement and that she apologized for disappointing them. Cooperation agreements are often a condition of plea agreements.

My response: I'm not buying that Marion Jones didn't know that she was taking steroids. Her ex-husband C.J. Hunter once testified that he saw her injecting steroids, not putting stuff under her tongue. I wager that she did both. Ol' girl will surely be stripped of those five Olympic medals. The former multimillionaire is now broke, her name is tarnished, the baby daddy of her first child ain't paying child support (she is married to the father of her newborn), and she faces felony prison time not only for steroids doping but check fraud. I can also see folks going after her for that prize money too. Sad story, but she brought upon herself.