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Greed-to-Grief, No. 14

Greed-to-Grief, No. 14

The girl who lived a lie

George Pillari
July 31, 2025

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“I stand before you and tell you that I have betrayed your trust.”

Those were the words of Marion Jones, gold medalist in the 100 meters, 200 meters, and 4x400 meters relay at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia. She threw in bronze medals in the long jump and 4x100 meters relay for good measure.

Marion Jones winning Olympic Gold

So, what trust did she betray? After denying it for many years, Jones finally admitted that she was a user of Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs). While her two previous boyfriends, shot-putter CJ Hunter and one-time 100-meter world record holder Tim Montgomery, were busted for PEDs, Jones continued to be under suspicion but was never caught.

At the time of the Sydney Olympics and the following year’s world championships, no star burned brighter than Marion Jones. She was practically unbeatable in the sprint disciplines.

It all came crashing down for Jones as a result of the BALCO scandal. The Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative was run by Victor Conte who supplied various performance-enhancing drugs to top athletes in many sports.

Jones, with her global fan base, effervescent smile, and ability to make winning look easy, was, along with home run king Barry Bonds, among the most high-profile athletes that were implicated.

Once Conte was nailed by the FBI, he started talking, and man did he talk.

BALCO mastermind Victor Conte

Conte pretty much published his client list for the investigators and dozens of respected athletic careers went off the rails.

Conte supplied Jones with THG, an anabolic steroid known as “The Clear.” Anabolic steroids assist the body in creating and building new muscle, while also helping those muscles recover faster after heavy use.

The Clear and any other anabolic steroids are banned substances from all top-tier athletic leagues.

I was a huge fan of Jones, but her body language and facial expressions when denying drug use over the years led me to say to my wife (several times), “Yup, she’s guilty.”

Winning was not new to Jones. As a California high schooler, she won the state’s 100 meters title four straight years, something that has never been duplicated. In those high-school years, Jones was also a standout basketball player. She was, as the sportswriters say, a “generational talent.”

Jone in high school

One of the threads we like to investigate in our stories is the early life and events that shaped the subject of our story. We did a little digging on Jones and found something surprising, but then again, not surprising.

In high school, many suspected her outrageous results were driven by PEDs. Most of the complaining can be written off as typical sore-loser commentary, but when Jones failed to appear for a random, out-of-season drug test, things got serious.

California law stated that any missed or failed drug test was an automatic four-year ban, effectively ending a high-schoolers career. Jones missed the test, was served with the ban, then her mom hired famed LA attorney-to-the-stars Johnny Cochran.

Cochran was best known for his later defense of OJ Simpson and he won Simpson a not guilty verdict in his murder trial for his ex-wife and her friend.

Cochran was more than a showman. From a young age, he was a well-regarded, and in some cases, feared attorney. Jones was technically slapped with the four-year ban for missing the test, but Cochran got her off by claiming the test-demand letter was misplaced in her coach’s office and she never knew about it. C’mon man!

Jones stating, “I have betrayed your trust.”

Jones went on to the University of North Carolina on a full basketball scholarship while also running track. After barely missing the 1996 Olympic track team, she dedicated herself full time to the sprints.

Let’s do a quick timeline of events. Jones skirts the drug test and graduated high school in 1993. She graduated from college in 1997 and won everything in Sydney in 2000. Even if Jones was clean in college (a big assumption), she probably would have started using PEDs a few years before the Olympics.

My narrative about Jones has shifted from her being one of the greatest American athletes ever to questioning if she was ever clean?

Jones served six months in prison for her misdeeds and what the judge called her “worldwide crime.”

Key Takeaways

What do you do if you cheat and keep winning to the point that you are the best in the world? I do not have a good answer for this other than don’t cheat in the first place. Marion Jones, Lance Armstrong and other will all say “everybody was using,” but it still doesn’t make it right.
It’s a pretty big deal for a high-school athlete to hire a high-profile lawyer like Cochran. Why is none of this ever mentioned by the obedient and compliant media that followed the career of Jones?
By default, an Olympic champion has more competitive spirit than the rest of us. But how much can a single-mined objective like winning a medal crowd out a person’s other thought processes and make her willingly commit a crime?

Things I think about

Although its ice holds about 70% of the Earth’s supply of fresh water, Antarctica is classified as a desert.