Wednesday, September 27, 2000
Run, Marion, run from drug stain
SYDNEY, Australia — Run, Marion, run. As fast as you can, from your husband's drug charges and the international infighting that has claimed you as its innocent victim. Run fast enough we will remember you for your running. It's a large task, so large you're the only person capable of pulling it off. But run. Run from everything that's not your fault.
It was inevitable that someone well-known would be snagged in the drug battle that has raged here for two weeks. You never guessed it would be Jones, who has failed no tests. Or her husband, shot-putter C.J. Hunter, who isn't even competing.
Jones can't control America's perceived arrogance and hypocrisy in the Olympic drug war. It isn't her fault her husband took a banned substance, over and over. All she can do is run.
“I was trying to conserve a bit of energy,” she said, after winning her 200-meter heat Wednesday morning. “Now I'll go back and get off my feet for a couple hours.”
Jones is a pawn in a chess game of rhetoric and suspicion between the United States and the rest of the world. From the White House down, the United States has criticized the International Olympic Committee for lax drug enforcement. When the Hunter story broke, IOC officials confirmed it as though they were running for 100-meter gold. You could almost see them rubbing their hands.
“We feel your house is not in order,” Gerhard Heiberg, an IOC delegate from Norway, told the New York Times. “You want us to be open. That has to go for the U.S. as well.”
Hunter's fault, not hers
Run, Marion. Away from the blame that has attached itself to you by association. Sprint from the unfairness as if you were running for your life. Which, in a sense, you are.
“I thought this was going to be the most difficult day,” Jones said, after cruising to victory. She meant the two rounds of heats in the 200, and the long jump qualifying. Not the story that has consumed the Olympics for two days.
Before the world found out her husband had flunked four drug tests, Jones ran fast for the joy and glory of it. Now, she runs fast to get away.
Jones and Hunter appeared at a damage-control press conference here Tuesday afternoon. It was very much a Bill-and-Hillary gathering. As with Mrs. Clinton, watching Jones made you squirm. “I am here to show my complete support for my husband,” she said.
Hunter cried a river and said he'd never do anything to shame his family. The irony is as big as Olympic hypocrisy. Hunter has built a reputation as a looming, ominous figure, ready to cut off any interview or photo shoot that blurred his wife's “focus.” Now, it's Hunter who has added to Marion's strain.
Racing and fleeing
Hunter sounds like every athlete who gets caught doping. His iron “supplement” was tainted. Or mislabeled. Or both. The IOC says Hunter failed four tests over the summer. He says every test was fouled the same way.
Well, OK.
For all we know, his wife has never ingested anything stronger than Nyquil. We're holding her to an impossible standard. We are saying, you must be clean. And so must your husband.
She's running for five gold medals, an incredible quest. Run, Marion, run. On winged feet, away from the ties that would bind you. It's all you can do.
Enquirer columnist Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments at (513) 768-8454.
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