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Thursday, September 28
Jones runs on despite scandal
Associated Press
SYDNEY, Australia -- The competition didn't keep up with
her. The tough question didn't rattle her.
Marion Jones seems determined to make her way through the Sydney
Olympics with her trademark mix of poise and speed.
Jones won the women's Olympic 200 meters by the biggest margin
since 1960. Then she answered a question that would have aggravated
just about any other athlete under similar circumstances.
Was she worried that people would suspect she used
performance-enhancing drugs?
"No," she said with her customary calmness and no trace of
anger, "I don't have that fear, because the people who know me,
coach me, train me, know I'm a clean athlete."
Her runaway triumph in the 200 Thursday night came just two days
after her husband, shot putter C.J. Hunter, tearfully tried to
explain why he had tested positive for the anabolic steroid
nandrolone.
Jones refuses to allow her husband's problems to detract from
her quest to become the second Olympian, and first in 76 years, to
win five gold medals in track and field.
"To let one event ruin it, no way, no way," she said. "What's
happened the last couple of days could have swayed my focus, but it
didn't, and I'm glad about that."
Olympic Stadium, and performing in front of more than 100,000
people, has been her refuge.
"When I stepped on the track, it just seemed like everything
was pushed aside and what I was focusing on was the track," she
said. "I think it's very easy to forget about things off the track
when you step into the stadium -- the people, the lights and the
camera. You know, it wasn't very difficult."
With chief rival Inger Miller out with a hamstring injury,
Jones' 200-meter triumph, and her 100-meter victory last Saturday,
were devoid of suspense. She simply blew the competition away, then
indicated that was what she and everyone else should have expected.
"I don't think anybody, at least I hope none of you guys,
doubted me in the sprints," she told reporters with a smile.
It probably was the most one-sided sprint sweep in Olympic
history.
Her margin of victory in the 200 was 0.43 seconds, the biggest
since Wilma Rudolph won by 0.45 seconds at the 1960 Tokyo Games.
Last Saturday, her victory margin in the 100 of 0.43 seconds was
the second-largest ever in that Olympic event, by a man or woman.
The lack of any real competition didn't diminish Jones' joy,
though. She had been aiming at the Olympics since she was an
8-year-old girl watching the Los Angeles Games on television in
1984.
"It's so much better than the dream," Jones said. "It's so
much better to have it actually around your neck."
She remains very much a supporter of her husband, who claims his
positive tests came from an iron supplement. After her 200 victory,
she sought Hunter out in the crowd and gave him a kiss.
On the medals stand, she was serious at first, then broke out in
a bright, big smile as the national anthem neared its end.
"I'm here for greater things than these two gold medals,"
Jones said. "I know I can walk away with five."
Next up was her toughest individual event, the long jump. Her
oft-criticized technique, or lack of technique, makes each of her
long jump competitions an adventure.
Looming slightly farther down the road are the 400- and
1,600-meter relays. Miller and Gail Devers, both original members
of the relay team, will not be able to run because of hamstring
injuries -- depriving the United States of two of its top sprinters.
Those problems, and a lack of big-time talent other than Jones
on the U.S. 1,600-meter relay team, means that she could fail
through no fault of her own.
The more gold Jones wins, the bigger target she becomes.
Just ask Pauline Davis-Thompson, silver medalist in the 200 and
one of three Bahamians who made it to the 100-meter finals.
"Marion," she said as she sat beside Jones in the medalists'
news conference, "we are going to give you one hell of a run."
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Track and field results
Devers, Miller withdraw from women's 400 relay
Jones easily wins 200 for her second gold medal
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