"Top Speed"

For a Marion Jones fan its shocking. I really can't express my disappointment at this piece of news. If her admission to taking drugs in Oct 07 made me sad (well it stripped her of her medals), this 6 month sentence has actually devastated me.

Have followed the track n field events with great gutso since I was a kid and Mike Powell broke Bob Bemon's long standing long jump record and Carl Lewis' 9.86 s sprint in the Tokyo World Championship games, 1991. 100 m sprint is the most glamorous event and the king/queen of track is definitely the person who wins it. Carl Lewis, Leroy Burrel, Dennis Mitchell, Donovan Bailey,Maurice Greene, Tim Montgomery (well! sigh!) and Asafa Powell come instantly to mind. The speed kings of our era.... Two of the most glamorous speed queens that instantly come to mind are "Flo Jo" - Florence Griffith Joyner and Marion Jones. Flo Jo faced quite a few allegations of drug abuse throughout her career (which is also said to contribute to her premature death) but her world records for 100/200 m still stand. Marion Jones scorched the turf in the 2000 Olympics winning 5 medals. What makes headlines today is her fall from grace.


It was 97 and my final year at high school, and Marion Jones was winning it all for NCSU - North Carolina State University.
Leading the Basketball team to wins et al. By the next couple of years she had announced her arrival on the track and field circuit with clean sweeps at the World Championships. The World waited with bated breath for the 2000 Olympics and it was at best described as a complete domination of Jones as she went on to win 3 gold and 2 bronze medals. Overnight she became the track queen heralded as the Sexy Sprint Queen by the media. Her next-door smile won her endorsements and fans alike.


But somehow all these today seems murky. All the people around her have been convicted of performance enhancing substance abuse - CJ Hunter, Tim Montgomery - which leads me to a very fundamental question. Is use of steroids as rampant as it appears to be or is it always one-off? Probably the stakes and the pressure of success is so high that doping seems a simple and easy way out. CJ Hunter was famous for "clear" steroids - clear meaning performance boosting stuff which are not detected by tests. Well how widespread is the phenomenon will be unknown to someone like me.

But one thing is clear - Track and Field will probably lose out on a fan...