I hope this isn't true

[Bluedawg]

Marion Jones admitted (http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/news?slug=ap-jones-dopingrun&prov=ap&type=lgns) using steroids before the 2000 Olympics in a recent letter to close family and friends, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

Jones, a triple gold medalist in Sydney, said she took "the clear" for two years, beginning in 1999, and that she got it from former coach Trevor Graham, the newspaper reported. Graham told her it was flaxseed oil

I've always like and supported Marion. i was hoping she'd be cleared in all of this.

[Biscuit King]

If it's true, it makes me happy. Good to see her come clean, sort of. I have more respect for her now. I wish some other athletes would follow her lead and admit they took drugs from BALCO.

[SilkyJ]

hah. i don't respect liars and cheaters.

[Cameron]

Professional athletics are all becoming one big joke. What is wrong with some of these people?

I agree with SilkyJ. Cheaters are criminals.

[Deslok]

If it's true, it makes me happy. Good to see her come clean, sort of. I have more respect for her now. I wish some other athletes would follow her lead and admit they took drugs from BALCO.

Except that her admission was that she thought it was flaxseed oil, and only later recognized it as the "clear" substance they were talking about. Erm, yeah, I believe that you didn't know what it was... right. Never much liked her, and perhaps colored by that impression(and that's she's a Heel), always figured she was full of BS when she was proclaiming innocence when all the folks around her were guilty of various doping scandals.

[devildeac]

I've always like and supported Marion. i was hoping she'd be cleared in all of this.

Sounds like she has been "cleared" in all this...

[JasonEvans]

First of all, the flaxseed defense is just stupid. The benefits of flaxseed oil, as I understand it, are to lower cholesterol levels in the body and as a cancer fighter. Why a professional athlete would think they can improve their health by taking flaxseed oil is a mystery to me.

The notion that these people who make a living off their physical strength and agility would put anything in their body about which they were unsure of the contents is just dumb too. They are all implying that some trainer gave them this stuff and they just took ti without really questioning it. Yeah, right!!

I think they all knew what they were doing and they were told, "if anyone asks, tell them it is flaxseed oil."

And, to me, it does not matter. If they took the illegal substances and enhansed their athletic abilities with them then they should lose their records, achievements, and money. I don't care if they did not know what they were doing -- they cheated. Perriod, end of story.

Sports is full of people being punished for accidentally cheating. It seems like it happens in golf all the time where someone signs a wrong scorecard or replaces a ball wrong or something else that is a subtle bending of the rules and they get penalized strokes or even kicked out of the tournament. If you make a mistake but get a competative advantage then you are out of luck. Sorry, do not pass GO, do not collect $200, go directly to JAIL!!

These people have made a mockery of sport. It has gone on for far too long. What about all the people who played fairly and never had huge lucrative careers or did not get to win medals or set records or whatever? Cheaters must be punished-- and punished HARD!

--Jason "Barry Bonds better be next-- I want baseball to strip him of his records and I want the Giants to come after his past salary!!" Evans

[Patrick Yates]

Professional athletics are all becoming one big joke. What is wrong with some of these people?

I agree with SilkyJ. Cheaters are criminals.

My first year of B-School was during the Enron, Worldcom, et al melt downs. In my ethics class, one student asked how the CEOs of the companies could have faced themselves in the mirror each morning knowing that they were breaking laws and defrauding their investors, employees, and the public at large.

Simple. Money. Many of the guys involved made hundreds of millions of dollars defrauding the market. Most of that money was funneled into offshore accounts or used to buy houses in Texas or Florida (where banruptcy laws protect said houses from court actions). They made off like bandits. They spend 3-5 years in a tony prison (not the bad ones) and walk out of prison, fly to another country and live fantastic lives.

This is exactly like the athletes. If you are poor or middle class, sports may seem like a great way out if you are a good athlete. But, the margin of victory is so slim. Today, everyone takes advantage of superior training equipment and methods, monitored nutrition, and legitimate suppliments. Today, it may not be possible to "outwork" your opponents. Sure, you can out work some, or even most, of your comp. But, there will always remain a core group of top competitors that have your approximate god (genetic) given talents, who work as hard as you do. The thing is, the millions are only there if you are dominant. In sports like track, which are not popular year in and year out here in the states (moreso in Europe, but if you are not on a pitch you are a third class athlete, money wise), you have to be dominant to get big endorsement money. Not top 4 dominant, rather winning 7-8 out of 10 races dominant. Jones was a freak, completely dominating the olympics. Everyone knew her name as a result, and she cashed in accordingly. If she had won 1-2 medals, do you think NIKE would have been holding out a giant sack of cash? No. Thus, you seek every possible edge. At some point, an athlete would have to fear that without enhancements, races might be decided on who had a better week, or breakfast, or whatever that day, because the training edge is marginal, if it still exists.

So they seek that little edge. All the while, they tell themselves that they are not doing anything that anyone else is not doing. Everybody's doing it, so why don't I.

Frankly, I am sure it is much more widespread than we realize. The sports with the highest incidence of cheating happen to be the sports with the most rigorous testing policies. I would hate to think what rigorous testing would reveal in college and pro team sports.

Personally, I think each athlete should be tested minutes prior to each game, at half-time, and minutes after each game, in all sports. For other sports, prior to and immediately following each event. That would ensure beleivable results. Even first time positive tests should result in at least a year long ban. When you get to 2 (or maybe 3) positives, lifetime ban, no matter the level. So if a HSer tested positive 2-3 times, lifetime ban. No scholly, no walking on, no eligibility at any Level (legally speaking, this might not be possible unless Congress, the EU, and other international bodies waived collusion and anti-trust restrictions, but a fan can dream).

Until this happens, and I doubt it will, because leagues and sports need stud athletes to sell tickets, merchandising, and TV rights, sports will always operate under a cloud. And frankly, said leagues don't really care if the athletes are enhanced or not (all they really care about is that the enhanced athletes don't get caught, thus causing a media furor and fan backlash).

Sadly, we all continue to think of sports as, well, sports. They are businesses, even at the collge level (billion dollar deals for hoops and the BCS). When you put that much money into anything, cheating will occur. The possible rewards will always sway someone.

Patrick Yates

[Rich]

Jason,

Why do you keep beating around the bush and sugar coating things? Tell us how you really feel. Yeesh!

[Bluedawg]

Barry Bonds better be next-- I want baseball to strip him of his records and I want the Giants to come after his past salary!!

Agree 110%

[monkey]

Agree 110%

Second that. Bonds is dirty. Just a matter of time until the full truth comes out.

[JasonEvans]

Personally, I think each athlete should be tested minutes prior to each game, at half-time, and minutes after each game, in all sports. For other sports, prior to and immediately following each event. That would ensure believable results.

Actually, that would ensure nothing at all. There are some sports, endurance sports especially, where some kind of chemical or medical enhancement during or just before the event would be of benefit, but for the most part the impact of steroids and the such comes in off-season training.

It is not like Barry Bonds is normal-sized just before a game and then he inserts a hypo-needle in his arm and his head grows by 60%. It has been years and years of abuse and training that has made him into a chemically enhanced beast with a bat.

I had a discussion with a friend recently who was talking about Barry's ability to hit homeruns today when there is rampant testing. My friend said, "he is still hitting homers at a sick rate and we know he is not doping now." I pointed out that even today, Barry enjoys some of the benefits of his years of steroid enhancement. If he keeps on working out, he can maintain at least some of the unnatural muscle mass for a while (though the ability to recover from injury and wear-and-tear faster would go away, as I understand it, which may be why Barry has been playing in a lot fewer games the past couple seasons).

I think the best solution is the kind of thing they do in track and cycling-- random testing year-round. In these sports you must tell the testing agencies where you will be at all times. They can show up at your door with no warning at all and demand a sample. Yes, it is invasive, but the conduct of the athletic world has brought us to this. In cycling and track, guys get suspended all the time for not being where they said they would be. It may seem harsh, but those are the rules and I think we need to be overly harsh right now to combat at least a decade of rampant abuse across the sporting world.

--Jason "I'd love to see Nike or some other huge sports company sue to get back the money they paid to their doping endorsers... that would be sweet!!" Evans

[captmojo]

Well, she gets what she deserves. But, I think it took a load of guts to get up and admit. Something Bonds probably won't be able confront, unless done through a rage episode.

[Indoor66]

Her public admissions, apology and request for forgiveness is one of the most heart rending episodes of that nature that I have seen. I cannot condone her actions, but if you have forgiveness in your heart, she is a classic case for condemning the sin and loving the sinner.

[JStuart]

She's quite impressive now, but didn't she sue Balcor for defamation of character, and win several million back when all this started? She hasn't explained that yet.

[DukeDevilDeb]

As of this morning's news, Marion pled guilty to the charges. It is likely that she will face some jail time. It is also almost certain that she will lose the 5 gold medals she won at the Olympics and have to pay back whatever money she made while "under the influence."

But please tell me how Bonds just keeps on playing and playing and making money and breaking records when it is so apparent that he is guilty. I realize that the premise in this country is innocent until proven guilty (see lacrosse case), but I almost feel insulted as a sports' consumer that he is still in there and is now considered the Home Run King.

The thought of trying to keep track of the drug/steroid use of all NCAA and Pro athletes in the country is overwhelming. Random drug testing is probably the most effective. But will someone please explain why Bonds has remained free while others fall around him?

[Matches]

--Jason "Barry Bonds better be next-- I want baseball to strip him of his records and I want the Giants to come after his past salary!!" Evans


Bonds IS still doping; he's just using HGH instead of "the clear" or whatever else they're now able to test for. MLB does not test for HGH.

Let's not let the Giants off the hook here, though. They've made a zillion dollars off of Bonds and continued to employ him, even after the evidence of his cheating became apparent. Now that they got what they wanted out of him (publicity and attendance during the HR chase), they've cut ties, but they have NO moral high ground here.

[grossbus]

"But, I think it took a load of guts to get up and admit."

not so much guts. they had her dead. she did this to avoid max sentence. think of it as a plea bargin.

one ESPN writer described what she did as a "swiss cheese admission." it is full of holes. conte said she was using more than the clear. the way things are going, i tend to believe him...not her.

cheating and lying since 1999.

[arnie is still king]

Marion Jones "confession" is very similar to the Nifong "confessions". Why people want to defend her is beyond me - I guess they also believe OJ is inoccent and Bonds never new what he was taking.

[dukie8]

I had a discussion with a friend recently who was talking about Barry's ability to hit homeruns today when there is rampant testing. My friend said, "he is still hitting homers at a sick rate and we know he is not doping now."

baseball doesn't test for hgh. what do you think everyone is on? end of story. also, not failing a test doesn't mean anything if you are on something not being tested for. don't forget that mj never failed a test and was loaded to the gills with drugs.

[dukie8]

Her public admissions, apology and request for forgiveness is one of the most heart rending episodes of that nature that I have seen. I cannot condone her actions, but if you have forgiveness in your heart, she is a classic case for condemning the sin and loving the sinner.

you have to be kidding me. her apology/admission was a complete joke because she still is not coming clean. she claims that starting in 1999, her coach started giving her what he said was flaxseed oil but was really the clear. this supposedly went on for 2 years before she realized what it was. she refused to admit taking anything else despite the fact that victor conte has admitted to personally injecting her with a whole host of other drugs during that time period. what about the insulin and hgh she was taking all along? she has zero credibility because she so steadfastly denied taking anything all of these years -- in a lot of ways even moreso then LA has. i don't know how you could possibly love such a despicable person. she has nobody to blame but herself for this mess.

[dukie8]

the other thing that most people don't know is that she was a phenom in high school. her times in the 100 and 200 in high school would have gotten her into the olympic finals of both events (11.14 in the 100) and she made the olympic team in 1992 as a relay member. she then mysteriously missed a drug test and hired johnny c to defend. the word that i have heard for years was that she got caught red-handed back in high school for being doped and the deal she struck was to play hoops at unc for 4 years and no national or international tnf competitions. her not pursuing a running career in 1992 when she already was top 10 in the world at 16 years of age and on the verge of making millions should have raised a lot of eyebrows at the time but it didn't. it would have been like lebron bailing on hoops after his senior year to long jump for ohio state. so the story is she played ball at unc, jumped in a few acc and ncaa meets and then hit the ground running (literally) in 1997 to quickly become the media darling of women's sports. she almost instantly was making well north of a million a year and probably was the most famous female athlete in the world for a long time. this all would have happened back in the early 1990s had she been allowed to run full-time.

[Indoor66]

Marion Jones "confession" is very similar to the Nifong "confessions". Why people want to defend her is beyond me - I guess they also believe OJ is inoccent and Bonds never new what he was taking.

I don't there are any comparisons between the two "confessions". Additionally, Jones expressed shame, contrition, apology and a request for forgiveness. I in no way give her a pass or defend her actions. I do admire her guts and willingness to stand up before God and everyone and own up to what she did and make the expressions she did.