Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Taking back Marion Jones' medals

Anyone who is a sport fan will know that recently disgraced sprinter Marion Jones, once the fastest woman in the world, has admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs during her reign as sprint queen of the world.

As such, Jones has been stripped of her gold medals from the 2000 Olympics and asked repay more than 100,000 dollars in prize and bonus money. Jones has returned the three gold and two bronze medals she won unfairly at the Sydney Games. Worse, some of the medals were won in the relays and as such her relay teammates also has to turn over their medals from 2000 as well.

A sad end to a once great career, but I question the need to hand over the medals Jones won in 2000. The reason? Simple...Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou is now in line to receive one of the golds because she finished second behind Jones in the Sydney 100 metres. But guess what? Thanou was given a two-year ban for allegedly faking a motorbike crash to cover up missing a drug test during the 2004 Summer Games. So they basically now have to hand over the gold to a sprinter with a bad record.

Brilliant! If this is the case, why brother with the problem of taking back the medals from Jones? Here's hoping the US will clean up the team for next year's Beijing Games.

1 comment:

Hachiko Monogatari said...

I kinda agree with you. In the end it's like half a dozen in one, and six in the other...

When it comes to money and prestige, men (and women) would do anything in their powers to obtain them when given the chance, fair or not.

Kind of reminded me of an anecdote I mentioned in my blog:

What separates adults from children? What differentiates one from the other? When it comes down to the basics, actually not much. Adults are like children, except they have more expensive toys. And they don't play fair either!