Drugs: Golden pair tarnish Games

By CHRIS RATTUE

We awoke to a different world again on Monday, a dark and murky sort of place where names like Ben Johnson and Linford Christie swirl around.

Marion Jones, the intended golden darling of the Olympic Games, is tainted by drugs.

The woman around who much of the pre- Olympics build-up has been based, and whose smile could light up these Games, cannot be seen in the same glowing light again.

As such, the Games are again tainted by drugs. Again, there is the inescapable feeling that those who claim drugs are still rife in sport are not scaremongers, but truth tellers.

When the world woke to find that Jones, the American aiming to win five gold medals, is married to a drug cheat, these Games could never quite be the same again.

Everyone knows that drugs are still in sport, despite the testing that goes on.

But somehow we can still cope when it is Bulgarian weightlifters and Latvian rowers. Their names are not familiar and they come from mysterious cultures who know not what they do. Or so we hope.

Those drug revelations seep around the cracks of the Olympics.

But when it involves someone like Jones, a very large, dark cloud suddenly descends.

This is not a good day, but then maybe we can feel happy that we now know a bit more of the truth.

The dilemma facing many American sportswriters after the Sydney's Telegraph broke the story was just how far they could link Jones to drugs after it was revealed her husband, a world champion shot put exponent named C J Hunter, tested positive for steroids this year. Some writers are adamant Jones must have known what was going on. Their editors, mindful of small matters like lawyers' letters, were reticent.

Whatever the whole truth, Jones is undeniably guilty by association.

When people watch replays of her winning the 100m they will wonder.

When she strives for gold in the 200m, long jump, plus the 4 x 100m and 4 x 400m relays, they will wonder again. Is she ... ?

And through guilt by association, other athletes, especially those who win and/or break records, and those who suddenly pull out of events, are also tainted.

Hunter and Jones were an odd pair anyway, who have ensured their names will be linked in sporting history, but not quite in the way they might have hoped.

They were considered a mismatch when they got together. He was 26 and she 19.

Hunter, now 31, was hired as a North Carolina track coach and they "just clicked" when he gave Jones a lift to an airport.

The 144kg Hunter has been variously described as gruff, "unamused," unemotional and unapproachable.

Jones has a sweet image and has claimed Hunter is different to this.

She told reporters this year: "I know he's the best in the world. You're the ones who seem surprised. Not us."

The biggest surprise though, Marion, was yet to come and it arrived from a great height and in large dollops yesterday morning.

How could a wife, in the same athletics business, not know or at least suspect?

The IOC have been sitting on a time bomb.

The problem is once we believe drugs are rife, the meaning of the competition goes hurtling out the window.

So you ran whatever, or jumped that high, but who cares?

And those athletes on the level will feel accusing eyes drilling through their backs. The better they do, through their talent and hard effort, the more intense those daggers will be. It is so unfair.

We cannot accuse Marion Jones of using performance enhancing drugs. But we can say she is touched and tainted by them.

There is the old saying: If you lay down with dogs, you're going to get some fleas. Marion Jones and the Olympics are covered in sack loads of the things.