Disgraced Sprinter Seeks to Turn Negative Into Positive
Marion Jones wants to turn her negative experience into a positive one.
Dec. 17, 2008 — -- Disgraced sprinter Marion Jones acknowledges controversy may have forever stained her reputation, but she hopes to help others in her post-prison life.
"I have paid the ultimate price," she said on "Good Morning America" today. "For the rest of my life, certain people will equate me with this controversy.
"Throughout all of this I've learned I've hurt a lot of people and it's my responsibility to give back," the 33-year-old said.
The once-heralded runner was at the top of her game and had the nation's admiration, and a life that glittered as much as the gold medals she picked up on the Olympic circuit. But a doping scandal stripped her of her Olympic medals, and the one-time fastest woman in the world spent six months in prison after she was convicted in January of lying to federal prosecutors about her use of performance-enhancing drugs and her role in a check-fraud scam.
"I was in a much different place in my life. I made much different choices. I made bad decisions," said Jones, who missed her youngest son's first birthday due to jail time.
The sportswoman still contends — as she always has — that she was unaware that drugs were being administered to her.
"That's the truth. I have experienced a lot of negative consequences for what I've admitted," she said. "When you're a high-profile person, you trust certain people around you. You trust they will have your best interests in mind."
It's a claim Jones stated in her first post-prison interview with talk show queen Oprah Winfrey last October. She said she would never compete again and insisted she never thought she was receiving anything beyond legal vitamins.
She also said she believes she still would have won her medals without performance enhancers.
The woman who captured three gold and two bronze medals in the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, initially denied using steroids despite the fact that her shot-putting ex-husband C.J. Hunter admitted to doping. The athlete's continual denials didn't cease the ever-increasing whispers about her possible drug usage.
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