Marion Jones stripped of medals, integrity

Another sad day in sports, as Marion Jones, the disgraced American track star who won 3 gold medals and 2 bronze at the 2000 Sydney Olympics had them taken away today by the IOC. According to the New York Times, the IOC has banned Jones from attending the 2008 Beijing Olympics in any capacity, and the U.S. Olympic Committee has suspended the retired doper from competition for 2 years. She could face a lifetime ban from all Olympic games pending the outcome of the BALCO investigation.

Just another cheating athlete caught in the act. I remember watching her singing the American anthem after winning her medals and seeing how proud she was to be representing her country in competition. What a joke. She only admitted cheating in the Sydney games as part of her guilty plea to lying to the feds in the BALCO case about using steroids. The truth was going to come out, and they were gonna get her - no matter what.

For me personally, the Olympic games symbolize sportsmanship, integrity, and national pride. Jones managed to bamboozle everybody in all three of these categories, proving again that no sport is innocent.