Money Losers of 2007: Marion Jones is last out of the blocks

21 12 2007

Money Losers of 2007: Marion Jones is last out of the blocks

Posted by: in Companies Competitive Strategy

Filed under: Competitive strategy, Scandals, Business of sports, Headline news

Could there be any worse fate for an Olympic level athlete than to be stripped of their statistics and medals? Yes, there could be worse things. Just ask former Olympic track star Marion Jones which is worse, losing your medals or being forced to tell your mom you’ve to sell her home.

Are these professional quality athletes really so stupid as to believe that if they get pinched for using banned performance enhancing drugs they’ll get away with just a slap on the wrist? I don’t think it’s that simple. I’m sure that Marion Jones knew what she was doing was seriously wrong and I feel certain that she knew if she got busted, the truth would come with a very high price. Now, amid all the investigations and scandal, she’s finding out just how high priced skirting the truth can really be.

For her misdeeds, Marion Jones has been required to forfeit all five of her medals from the 2000 summer Olympics and has been told to repay approximately $700,000 of her prize money. All of her standings and statistics beginning at September 1, 2000, shall be red-lined in the record books and her medals from other competitions have been taken away also.

From this day forward, Marion Jones shall probably have no true rest. Such a wide swath of investigation has been opened, that the investigative leads might never cease. Through the investigation of a ring of steroid users and providers with which she was associated, it has also been shown that Marion Jones had at the very least casual ties with a high-stakes check and money laundering scheme. Let us not forget also that she’s allegedly guilty of making false statements to federal investigators.

I wonder if her days of ill-gotten glory were worth the gut-wrenching misery that she must be suffering right about now. It’s the obligation of each one of us to impress today’s budding athletes with the seriousness of cheating at every level, and Marion Jones serves as prime example to teach that lesson. Unfortunately, I think that the pervasive attitude in sports these days is the mantra that Marion Jones fell prey to: You do what you need to in order to win and it’s only wrong if they catch you. Instruct your children that it’s wrong to cheat. Integrity keeps you healthy and lets you sleep at night. In my record book that’s a win.

The bad news is that for every professional athlete who gets nailed for using banned performance enhancing substances, there are probably 30 others who will get away with it uncontested. To them all I have to say is:

I guess you’re not the bad ass you think you are, schmuck.

Be sure to check out other Money Losers of 2007.