The reason I decided to write this article was this superb photo.
Some time ago World athletics published an article entitled "Saluting the Bahamian Golden Girls 25 years on". It was celebrating the victory of the Bahamas' women team in the 4x100 m relay of the 2000, Sydney, Olympics. It's a very nice article and I highly recommend it (all the more so, if you are of the generation who has experienced the Sydney Olympics live). And if you wish to revisit the race, the video is on YouTube. (If you are younger, you will be surprised by the bad quality of the video. This was the era of the crappy NTSC, an analog system with 480 lines and 4:3 aspect ratio. We have made an incredible progress since that time).
The team of Bahamas were the logical favourite, having won the world title the previous year in Sevilla. France was second on that occasion with Jamaica third and the US fourth. But the Sydney final was a totally different matter. The US team had as anchor none other than Marion Jones who had dominated the 100 m race (and 200 m and had won bronze in the long jump).
The regular readers of my blog know that there are athletes that I like and others that I don't. M. Jones was part of the second group from the very first day. The media were ecstatic when speaking about her, something I could not stand. (Just as I could not stand the total absence of style in her long jump. You know my feelings about King Carl. But I have always granted that he was the best stylist ever in the long jump. Jones was one of the worst).
M. Jones went to Sydney announcing that she intended to win five gold medals. (She was also part of the 4x400 m relay that won the race). So she managed to realise 60% of her prediction. And a few years later that was transformed to 0%. I will not go into all the sordid details of the M. Jones doping affair. Jones had been accused of doping from the outset of her career. Already at high school she missed a random drug test and was banned for four years from track and field competitions. She claimed that she was never informed about the test and managed to get the ban overturned. In Sydney there was a minor scandal involving her then husband, shot-putter C.J. Hunter. He was present as Jones' coach, having withdrawn from competition for an alleged knee injury. And then the real reason became known: he had, prior to the Olympics, failed antidoping tests, being positive for steroids. (As a result his coaching accreditation was revoked). Things came to a head years later, when V. Conte, the founder of BALCO, stated publicly, in 2004, that Jones had been doping already before the 2000 Olympics. Jones denied the accusations but in 2006 a sample of her urine tested positive in EPO. She was cleared of doping allegations after the examination of the B sample but the cogs of justice were turning. And finally in 2007 Jones confessed that she had been using steroids, already before the Sydney Olympics. She was suspended for two years and all her results from September 1, 2000 were anuled. And so the career of one of the first T&F female millionaire came to a sad end.
But this article is not about M. Jones. It's about the disqualification and the medals. M. Jones was active till 2006, participating in high-level competitions. Her results were, quite understandably anuled. But just try to find them anywhere. World Athletics has decided to publish pages upon pages like the screenshot below, where no results are given but just the mention -(DQ).
I cannot imagine a worse display of disrespect for Athletics than this. How can anybody who supposedly loves Athletics do this? What is the point in telling us that M. Jones participated in this and that competition without giving her performances? Would have been so difficult to keep them, adding on each line the code DQ, indicating that the performances were anulled? By making tabula rasa of all post 01/09/2000 performances, WA reminds me of the rewriting of history that is so popular in autocratic states.
The IAAF (that's what World Athletics was called at the time) recommended to the IOC that the two US women's relays be disqualified, due to the presence of M. Jones. That's what happened. Initially. France, having finished fourth in the 4x100 m was promoted to third. Same for Nigeria, who was fourth in the 4x400 m relay. Alas, that was short lived. The US brought the matter to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, invoking a legal vacuum (there was no clear rule disqualifying a team because of a doping offense of one of its members) and obtained a favourable judgement. So M. Jones appears in the official World Athletics page with Olympic honours, gold and bronze medals in Sydney. What a shame!
And the unfair decision of CAS robbed France (and Nigeria) of a medal. Still we have this great photo where one can see D. Ferguson celebrating, ahead of M. Ottey and C. Arron, with M. Onyali on the left and half of M. Jones. (I cannot imagine why WA did things halfway. They could have taken Jones completely out of the picture). Both Ottey and Arron look clearly disappointed. Ottey would have hoped to win the gold medal for Jamaica. (No, I am not going to tell the story of the controversy around M. Ottey's participation in the 4x100 m relay final. I am too big a fan of Ottey to enter these unsavoury gossips. If you are interested you have to find out for yourselves). And Arron was unfortunately no match for the steroid-enhanced Jones. But she got her vengeance three years later in the Paris World Championships.
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