by Larry EderIt is one week from the World Indoor Championships in Valencia, Spain, it is two weeks from the NCAA Indoor champs and the conference indoor champs are happening all over the US this weekend. Major marathon season is about to start, and the Honda City of LA Marathon was run on March 2.
Is it ironic, that at the start of the race to Beijing, that Marion Jones and her agent Charlie Wells, are about to start serving their terms?
Marion Jones will begin her jail term this month, serving six months in a minimum security prison, then two months of probation. Judge Karas, who sentenced her, used the word, ” troubled” about the inconsistencies in Jones’ mea culpa. The judge surmised that an elite athlete, who would know each and every part of her workouts each day, who had analyzed each and every part of her hundred meter race each day, would not know what she was ingesting.
Charlie Wells, the agent for Marion Jones, will begin to serve six months jail term from his home due to a conviction for writing six million dollars worth of bad checks. Wells will have a bracelet around his leg during his incarceration.
Both notables are sad notes on how the mighty have fallen.
Jones was an athlete at the top of her form, probably the most talented women athlete of her generation. Jones, in my mind, would have won all the same accolades without drugs that she won with drugs. She was the poster girl for women taking control of their lives, women athletes, the all American athlete. Then came Sydney and her then husband CJ Hunter and his positive tests in Europe that summer of 2000. In 2001, Jones lost her World Championship crown.
Then came last fall. In early October, Jones told the TV audience watching her as she admitted lying about taking performance enhancing drugs. She did this from the steps of a courthouse where she would be sentenced weeks later.
Wells, on the other hand, worked with several to write and cash a series of bad checks across the South. Also indicted on the scheme was Steve Riddick, a 1976 Olympian, and former college track coach.
Some may say that Jones and Wells got off easy. I think about it differently. Both will probably live for several decades after their incarcerations. Each time their names come up on the web, it will be highlighted with their crimes. That will haunt them the rest of their lives. Hopefully, it will also stop others from making the same mistakes.
Karma, is that what one would call it? Lie enough and you will get caught at it. Cheat and steal, and you will get caught at it.
Jones and Well have gotten their karma.For the rest of us, this is a week about watching indoor track and field.
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