FanHouse MarionJones

The great Michael Phelps bong brouhaha may end up telling us more about all of us who comment on it than it tells us about Phelps. Reactions in the media have ranged from those who ask, "Who cares?" to those who insist that Phelps is a disgrace to the Olympic Games, America and himself.

Maurice Greene became the latest high-profile U.S. Olympian dragged into the doping muck over the weekend, clouding the world of track a little bit more as we move toward Beijing. The New York Times article containing the allegation against Greene, which he's denied, also hints that it could just be the tip of the iceberg as the case against Marion Jones's coach, Trevor Graham, makes its way through court.

The United States Olympic Committee doesn't see that as any reason to worry about athletes using performance enhancing drugs during the Summer Olympics, though. U.S.O.C. Chairman Peter Ueberroth and chief executive Jim Scherr addressed concerns about their team, although they had slightly different levels of conviction.

"[With] the changes we've made to our doping programs, the protocols we've had in place, we're very confident that this team is clean and we'll field a clean team in Beijing," said Scherr. "Of course there's no way we can guarantee anything. But we feel very good about this team and the progress we've made [against] doping."

"This will be a clean team," Ueberroth said.

Scherr went on to call the doping problems part of the past when it's quite clear, from cycling to weightlifting to track, that it is very much a problem of the present. It's great to fight against it, it's great to strive for a clean team but shouldn't Ueberroth know better than to guarantee a clean team?

Lay down with dopers and you'll be punished. That was the message the International Olympic Committee sent down today when they disqualified the eight athletes who shared Olympic relay medals with Marion Jones at the 2000 Olympics. The runners have been ordered, via the U.S. Olympic Committee, to return their medals.

You have to feel awful for the eight women who didn't cheat yet get punished for it anyway. Cheaters should be punished and if Jones was cheating, then so was the whole team which is tough but fair. The circumstances surrounding Jones and the Sydney Games aren't exactly cut and dry. She never tested positive at the Olympics and the IOC only acted once Jones admitted she was a BALCO girl.

I also don't think the medals should be given to the next teams in line. Treat it the way the NCAA does when they vacate a team's place in a Final Four. Michigan's Fab Five made the Final Four in 1993 but were later stripped of their laurels because of a variety of infractions. That doesn't mean Temple made it just as it doesn't mean that Jamaica won the gold medal in the 4X400 relay in 2000. I know they didn't because I saw the United States win the race. Strip them, leave the medals unwon and make sure it doesn't happen again.

The New York Times is reporting that the World Anti-Doping Agency has purchased thousands of kits to screen blood for human growth hormone, which will facilitate the testing of all athletes participating in the Summer Olympics in Beijing.

HGH testing is not new -- some athletes were tested at the 2004 and 2006 Olympics -- but conducting the testing on a large scale is unprecedented because in the past there have been problems with manufacturing the thousands of testing kits needed to test every athlete. WADA says it has purchased the kits from a European company it would not name.

"We are pleased that the test will be in place for Beijing," David Howman, WADA's director general, said in a telephone interview. "The test has been around for a while; it was a matter of finding the manufacturer."

If the tests prove reliable, and if the company is able to produce the thousands of kits it says it will sell to WADA, there will be increased pressure on American sports leagues, including the NFL and Major League Baseball, to adopt blood testing for HGH.

Among the Olympians who have admitted to HGH use is Marion Jones, who is currently serving time in federal prison for lying to federal investigators.

BALCO founder and "Ape Walk" song creator, Victor Conte, is a free man today. His encarciration for criminal probation expired at midnight last evening. (I hope they let him out in the dead of the night.)

And it looks like Mr. Conte is wasting no time spinning his tales of steroid debauchery into a tell-all book. From the NY Daily News:

Slated for publication in September under the Skyhorse imprint, the book's working title is "BALCO: The Straight Dope on Barry Bonds, Marion Jones and What We Can Do To Save Sports." Conte, in conjunction with co-author Nathan Jendrick, promises to share "the dirt, the drugs, the doses, the names, dates and places, and a 'prescription' for a brighter future."

He promises the "complete truth in its honest, unadulterated and raw form" and says he is "ready to tell the world everything."

Whoa, whoa, whoa wait a second here. This sounds like a complete knockoff. Didn't Will Leitch already tell us how to save sports? And isn't Jose Canseco already releasing his second tell-all book on a similar subject? Although, i do like my truth in it's "unadulterated and raw form," so I guess I can give this one a shot.

Three-time Olympic gold medalist Marion Jones reported to prison today to begin serving her six-month sentence for lying to federal investigators about a check-fraud scheme and about her use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Jones reported to the Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, which is described on its web site as a facility that "provides specialized medical and mental health services to female offenders." It is not clear what specialized medical and mental health services Jones needs.

Although Jones is listed on the Bureau of Prisons web site as "not in BOP custody," a Bureau spokeswoman confirmed that Jones has reported and that she was assigned the inmate number 84868/054.

It's a sad fall from grace for Jones, who was once the world's most celebrated female athlete but has now had her medals taken away and her name wiped from the record books. Her projected release date is July 9, 2008.

Track and field superstar Marion Jones was sentenced this morning to six months in prison for lying to federal investigators about the BALCO steroid ring and for lying about a check-fraud scheme involving her ex-boyfriend, the Olympic sprinter Tim Montgomery.

The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas, who had previously indicated that he would give Jones a stiffer sentence than prosecutors had recommended.

Lying to investigators is a serious crime, but the subject of athletes using steroids seems better suited for the International Olympic Committee and the track and field governing bodies to police for themselves, not for the federal government to get involved in.

Check fraud, however, has the potential to harm its victims, and that part of this story -- which has made fewer headlines than her involvement in BALCO -- makes it harder to feel sympathy for Jones. Montgomery, who is the father of Jones' son, has already been convicted of the check scam. By lying to U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents about it, Jones was trying to help Montgomery steal from innocent victims.

Jones must begin her sentence two months from today, March 11. The photo shows Jones, appearing to be in good spirits, entering Federal Court in White Plains, New York this morning.

Here's an issue where I agree with Washington Post columnist and best-selling author Sally Jenkins: We both believe Marion Jones got a raw deal in the Balco investigation. Here's where I take issue with her: Jenkins has written a column that ignores key facts while somehow managing to conflate Jones with the Mitchell investigation, which, in case this isn't obvious, has nothing to do with track and field.

I would recommend Jenkins' column for any journalism teacher looking for an example of how a writer can simply ignore facts that aren't convenient to his or her hypothesis. Jenkins believes the fact that Jones is facing prison time for the Balco case shows a racial double standard: Whites who did the same thing Jones did aren't facing prison time, that's Jenkins' basic point.

So what does Jenkins have to say about the fact that the three people who have gone to prison for Balco are white? Nothing. She simply ignores that fact. Read the whole column, and notice the names "Victor Conte," "Patrick Arnold" and "Greg Anderson" don't appear anywhere. I guess it could have damaged her thesis that the Balco investigation is fueled by racism if she had bothered to mention Conte, Arnold and Anderson.

I feel badly for Marion Jones. I'd prefer not to have my tax dollars going toward investigating and imprisoning her. But I'm not going to claim that she's been treated worse than white people in the same situation, because she hasn't.

It's official: Marion Jones' track and field career ended before September of 2000.

You might think you remember Jones having a much longer career than that, but the International Association of Athletics Federations has ruled that all of Jones' results dating to September 2000 -- including the gold medals she won at the Olympics that month -- have been annulled because she admits she used steroids.

The IAAF, which is track and field's governing body, has ordered Jones to return about $700,000 in prize money, although there are reports that Jones is broke and won't be able to pay the money back.

Although I fully understand that track and field has rules and that Jones broke them, I think it's silly to just pretend her career never happened. Steroid users like Shawne Merriman, Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds still have their accomplishments in the record books. Jones should too. Fans are free to determine for themselves to discount the accomplishments of Merriman, McGwire, Bonds or Jones, but it's an insult to our intelligence for the people who run the sport to tell us those accomplishments never happened.

The World Anti-Doping Agency is a useless organization that has totally failed at its mission to rid sports of performance-enhancing drugs.

That's the only conclusion I can come up with from reading this comment from the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, Dick Pound, discussing Marion Jones:

"It is not much fun to find that someone who has been tested 160 times admits to doping," he said. "I am not happy to hear that someone who had that many tests was a user for that many years."

Yes, Marion Jones, who admits that her great track and field career was fueled by steroids, took 160 drug tests, and she went a perfect 160-for-160. So I ask you: What's the point of testing for steroids at all? Why are tests that can be beaten consistently any better than no test at all?