Olympian Marion Jones - Essay Example

Never have they had more training aids at their disposal. Before athletes did not have more opportunities to cheat by using performance-enhancing drugs, but it has become a huge phenomenon that has raised concern in the sporting world. Marion Jones was a track and field athlete . She was born in California, Los Angeles, in October 12; 1975.She was a daughter of African-American George Jones and his Belizean wife. She holds dual citizenship with Belize (her mother’s home country) and United States.

She was the first woman to win five track and field medals at single Olympics. Jones married in October 3, 1998 to his former coach shot putter C.J. Hunter. She trained for the Sydney 2000 summer Olympics with her new coach Trevor Graham. To supplement her training session for the 2001 world championships, where she won 200m gold and 100m silver, Jones was slipping tablets provided by Contes Bay Laboratory Co-operative under her tongue. In her 2006 EPO tests, the Washington post using unidentified sources on USA Track and Field championship in Indianapolis, IN, reported that sample ‘A’ of Marion Jones urine tested the presence of Erythropoietin a banned performance enhancer.

On September 6 2006, Jones lawyers announced that her sample ‘B’ had tested negative on the presence of such substances hence clearing her from the doping allegations. When Jones appeared in front of a federal grand jury which was investigating (BALCO) for distributing steroids in November, she claimed that she had not taken performance enhancing drugs (Shipley, 2007). During a raid on BALCO”S headquarters in San Francisco, Jones name was linked to doping schedules and Blood test results hence growing the cloud of suspicion around her.

Under BALCO investigation, Jones pled guilty before the US district court for the southern district of the New York (Quinn, 2007). She confessed that she had been making false statements to the investigation body. She was set free on her own recognizance but required to surrender both her Belizean and US passports pending sentencing in January the following year. After the legal admission, Jones publicly admitted taking steroids before 2000 Sydney Olympics in a press conference. After these admissions, United States Anti-Doping Agency imposed on her a two-year suspension from the track and field competition, which she accepted.

In October 2007, Jones announced her retirement from the track and field competitions (Newman, 2012). The US Anti -Doping Agency also disqualified all of her competitive prizes and results obtained after September 1, 2000 and nullified of all points, results, prizes, and medals earned. With that effect, the Association of Athletics Federation decided that Marion Jones must return all money and medals achieved including the 700,000 dollars prize money in November 2007. Jones was sentenced to six months in jail in January 11 2008.

She began the sentence on March 7, 2008 and she was released on September 5, 2008. In a published letter, Jones confirmed that she was using steroid Tetrahydrogestrinone known as the clear until the end of 2002, the time he stopped training with Coach Trevor Graham. She was actually too much ashamed of her deeds as she apologized to the whole nation (Quinn, 2007). Some of the sport enhancing drugs used by athletes to enhance performance include peptide hormones, insulin, human growth hormone, stimulates, steroids and amphetamines.

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