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Tuesday, September 26
Sweet Games turn sour for Jones
By Adrian Wojnarowski
Special to ESPN.com
SYDNEY, Australia -- The Olympics started so sweetly for Marion Jones,
the princess of track and field. She grabbed the Stars and Stripes and Belize
national flag out of the Stadium Australia stands and started on a victory lap after winning the 100 meters.
|  | | C.J. Hunter and Marion Jones both said they have faith in the justice system. |
Belize was the birthplace of her mother. It's an isolated country in Central America that never, ever dreamed its colors could step on stage with the most magnificent athlete of these Games.
At that time, Jones was the salvation of these Olympics. She was a vision of perfection,
untouched and untainted with the scandal and sleaze of this dying Olympic
movement. She had the biggest, strongest track power in the world backing her
bid for five gold medals.
And she had tiny Belize -- with 250,000 people, two Olympic athletes, one coach and an old soccer stadium for a track back in Belize City -- that clung tightest to her warm embrace.
"Our whole country is crying tonight," Belize's coach, Fred Evans, said -- his own eyes just getting over a good cry. "...I wasn't sure she was going to it. I was hopeful, but I didn't know the political implications in the United
States for carrying the flag."
Today, once again, Belize cries for Marion Jones. This time, it isn't alone in
the world.
Where has the smile gone? Where has the princess of these Games
disappeared? Jones had these Olympics on a yo-yo, her surreal speed and
spectacular smile promising to be backdrop for the drama the Olympics were
desperate to deliver.
So, yes, it was the saddest day in these Games on Tuesday morning when she marched into an impromptu news conference to do her part to clean the mess her husband, C.J. Hunter, made with his four positive tests
for nandrolone, a performance-enhancing drug.
This wasn't the setting the world wanted linked to Jones, who was now thrust into this three-ring drug denial circus the haughty Americans believed belonged to the Bulgarians and Romanians. She hadn't just seduced the U.S. and
Belize, but a globe enraptured with charismatic track stars. Here was Hunter,
lending his voice to the choir of failed laboratory testing, and attorney Johnnie Cochran,
declaring himself "a friend of the family."
And here was Jones, mired in this unseemly mess. She goes back to the
track on Wednesday morning in Sydney for qualifying in the 200 meters, and
later that night, she'll try to make it to the long jump final. She's trying
to stay on course for five gold medals. Just how she'll keep her head
together through this all will be a true measure of her greatness.
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Aside from him being an athlete and me being an athlete, he's my husband
and I'm here to show support for him. I have full and complete
respect, and believe the legal system will do what it needs
to do to clear his name.
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—
Marion Jones
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"Aside from him being an athlete and me being an athlete, he's my husband
and I'm here to show support for him," Jones said. "I have full and complete
respect, and believe the legal system will do what it needs
to do to clear his name."
Jones marched into an impromptu news conference and begged the sporting
press to leave her alone. She wanted to be the biggest star of the Olympics.
She let Nike sit her down on those commercials and wonder when the world was
going to give its love to track and field's stars.
Well, this sport can't have it both ways -- never mind its greatest star. She lives with Hunter,
trains with Hunter and it's human nature for us to cast a weary eye now. This
isn't just an association, this is a marriage.
Nobody's ever suggested Jones has tested positive for a banned substance,
and nobody's suggesting it now. If the labs are correct, though, and C.J.
Hunter had pumped these steroids into his body, it isn't unfair to ask: What
did Marion know, and when did she know it?
In the States, people are having a hard time watching the Olympics. Now,
it's something else. It's soap opera.
These were the Games missing storylines
and drama, but it changes now. If she isn't tainted by this scandal, she's
certainly touched. She's on the line too, now. She wanted the pressure of
five gold medals. She didn't just want to be just the hero of these Olympics.
She wants to be one for the ages. She wants to go down with Owens and Lewis,
with Flo-Jo and Spitz. She wants to be unforgettable.
Just one gold into the Games of her life, maybe it's happened for her. In
the Games of her life, she sitting on a stage with C.J. Hunter and Johnnie
Cochran. As everyone will try, who'll ever forget that?
Adrian Wojnarowski is a columnist for the Bergen Record and a regular
contributor to ESPN.com.
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