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The International Olympic Committee is moving in fast to strip Marion Jones of her five Olympic medals following her confession that she was aware she had taken performance-enhancing drugs.
The IOC has been alleging her involvement with drugs since December 2004 when she was involved in the Balco doping scandal. Now it has said that it was considering to remove the three gold and two bronze medals Jones won at the 2005 Sydney Olympics.
Ironically, the U.S. Olympic team once dubbed Marion Jones "the world's fastest mom," but she could not run fast enough to escape the doping charges that have plagued her since she won five medals at the 2000 Olympics. The sprinter and long jumper, the only woman to win five medals in athletics at a single Olympics, had repeatedly denied any wrongdoing but yesterday she pleaded guilty in a New York district court to having lied to federal investigators when she denied using steroids. Prosecutors have suggested that she will face up to six months in jail.
Jones, who announced her retirement last night, said she had taken steroids from September 2000 to July 2001 and had been told by her then coach Trevor Graham that she was taking flaxseed oil when it was actually "the Clear" - the designer steroid tetrahydrogestrinone (THG). "I consumed this substance several times before the Sydney Olympics and continued using it after," she told the judge. "By November 2003 I realized he was giving me performance-enhancing drugs."
It is a paradox indeed that, Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou, who finished second in the Sydney Olympics 100m race, stands to inherit Jones's gold medal! Katerina Thanou was at the centre of a doping scandal at the 2004 Athens Olympics. She failed to show up for a drug test and eventually pulled out. She was later suspended for two years.
It has now become clear that Marion Jones, once known as an athlete of uncommon ability, has been little more than a common criminal who avoided detection for eight years. "I lied to protect all that I had worked so very hard for in my life and career, and I had lied to protect myself," Jones said in a letter to friends and family.
Following her sentencing on January 11, Jones, who is 31-year-old and a mother of two, now faces up to six months in prison. Jones also faces a lifetime of shame, less for the cheating than for lying about it, and the loss of nearly all the awards she tried to protect.
The International Olympic Committee, the international track federation (IAAF) and USA Track & Field can also strip Jones of the medals she won after 1999, based on her admission of having taken drugs in 1999 and 2000 and the lifetime ban that would have followed repeated doping offenses.
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