We've had problems with some of our own, finest Olympians. Marion Jones comes to mind. She kicked everyone's behind, came home with a fist full of gold medals around her neck and lots more in her bank account. She was a media darling until questionable tests results started stacking up. When questioned under oath, she lied to the court, to the press, to everyone. She is now broke and in prison, has had to forfeit all her medals and still must pay off huge monetary fines when she is releasd from prison. Its good that she was found out and that she is paying for it. But it was a little too late for the clean athletes she competed against who were cheated out of a legitimate win and the opportunity to turn a gold medal into endorsements and numerous other benefits. They were not only denied the material rewards but they were denied the fame, their moment in history.
The same just happened to our men's 4 X 400 relay team who won gold at the games in Sydney in 2000. Antonio Pettigrew, one of the four on that team recently admitted to cheating. He was stripped of his medal AND so were his three fellow relay teammates who competed clean. Michael Johnson, one of those clean runners, voluntarily returned his medal when he heard about Pettigrew's admission. That was an unprecendented step but one he felt had to be done becauseas he said: it was won unfairly. Johnson describes the medal as "tainted" and said: "I know that the medal was not fairly won and that it is dirty and so I have moved it from the location where I have always kept my medals because it doesn't belong there.
"And it doesn't belong to me, so I will be returning it to the IOC because I don't want it. It was not won fairly. I am deeply disappointed and saddened."
It’s really a shame that it’s come to this. I wonder who will be checking the athletes in these games. Someone not biased, I would hope, but I’m not betting on it.