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By Mark Starr
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It's almost ridiculous to call it a controversy, certainly not in comparison with the firestorm of rumor and innuendo that has engulfed Marion Jones this week in her bid to make the U.S. Olympic team for Athens.
But there was, in fact, a minor flap regarding Jones during these same U.S. Olympic Trials four years ago, back when she was America's unrivaled darling. By contrast with the current drug scandal that has tarnished the sport and Jones's once stellar reputation, this was the kind of controversy devotees of the sport could embrace--an insider, highly technical debate over Jones's long-jumping prowess.
Track veterans criticized Jones's coach at the time, Trevor Graham, for not importing a specialist to help her develop sound jumping techniques. Instead she relied on God-given talents--her speed down the runway and her athleticism in the air. They would prove to be not enough in Sydney, where she settled for bronze in the long jump, derailing her five-gold-medal dream. Still, at the end of the 2000 Olympics--with her historic three-gold, two-bronze performance--Jones's jumping flaws seemed a minor footnote. So what if she wasn't Carl Lewis? Marion was an Olympic immortal and, perhaps even more important for her future, a Nike icon.
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The irony is tonight at the 2004 Olympic Trials in Sacramento, Calif., Jones will compete in the finals of the long jump, so now her weakest, least-glamorous event looms as perhaps her only hope of making the American Olympic team. Jones has already bombed out in the marquee 100 meters and, while she is expected to compete in the 200 meters this weekend, has displayed none of the old power, stamina and surge that are even more critical at the longer distance. When asked to handicap the women's 200 field, veteran Olympic sprinter Inger Miller managed to come up with five gold-medal contenders without mentioning the reigning Olympic champion, an omission she later termed, though not very convincingly, "inadvertent."
After Maurice Greene barely defended his 100-meter crown, just ahead of two newcomers on the national sprint scene, Mo said he no longer sensed "the fear factor" in his opposition. But that's far better than Jones's shocking plight, which is suddenly to have become no factor at all. Still, Jones was regarded as a prohibitive favorite to medal in the long jump against a relatively weak field. But in the preliminary round, which reduced the finals field to 12, Jones finished seventh, even poorer than her fifth-place showing in the 100. Her first jump fell more than two feet short of her winning mark four years ago--and each successive leap measured even shorter.
Jones is hardly the only veteran star who has turned in a lackluster performance here in Sacramento. All four big-name sprinters against whom the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) is seeking a lifetime ban--including 100-meter world-record holder Tim Montgomery, Jones's companion and the father of her 1-year-old son--left town without a spot on the Olympic team. After finishing a distant seventh in the 100 meters, Montgomery sounded off as he tried to escape the track amid a phalanx of reporters. "This is why I couldn't win," he said. "I got y'all on my back." Two-time Olympian Chryste Gaines, another of those four targeted athletes, fared even worse, not even making the 100-meter final. "Stress busts pipes," she said. "You can imagine what it does to a human."
It is almost impossible to imagine exactly what Jones is now enduring. After a season off to give birth to her son, she may have underestimated the mental and physical obstacles she faced to return to top form. And she certainly didn't anticipate the allegations stemming from the federal probe of BALCO, the Bay Area lab that allegedly dispensed illegal drugs to top athletes. While Jones has not been formally charged with any violations, she has been notified that she is under suspicion and the target of an ongoing USADA investigation. Barry Bonds can sneer and, competing in a sport that has virtually ignored its drug problem, tell reporters to take a leap in the bay. Jones, however, wants to represent her country and thus is publicly accountable. She had been forced to go on the defensive, an exhaustive regimen of denial upon denial.
Recovery from childbirth coupled with severe stress and daily distractions could account for her failures here in Sacramento. But many will see her performance only as confirmation of suspicions that she cheated her way to the top. And when she exited the track after the 100 meters, Jones seemed to have finally given up trying to tell her side of the story. "When I talk, you guys have something negative to say," she said as she fled the track in a golf cart. "When I don't talk, you have something negative to say."
She returns to the track tonight for the long-jump finals. And in a final irony, she may wind up making the team regardless of whether or not she medals in the competition. That's because she is one of only two American women to have already met the minimum standard to compete in the Olympic long jump. So unless there's some monumental improvement by the U.S. women jumpers tonight, Jones probably has her ticket to Athens--whether she wins the event or finishes 12th. But making the Olympics by default in what is her weakest event would almost seem a worse fate than staying home. On Wednesday morning, Nike unveiled its new uniforms for America's track and field team. At a time when Jones seems very much persona non grata in the track family, the Nike spokesman singled her out for her input into the new design. "Don't make me look like a man," she told Nike's creative team. Now it may not matter what she looks like. Jones, omnipresent on the NBC broadcasts from Sydney four years ago, doesn't appear destined for much face time in Athens.
Update, July 17: Marion Jones had a timely return to form Thursday night--and leaped her way onto the U.S. Olympic team, reports Mark Starr. Just three days before Jones had finished seventh in the preliminary round of the long jump and never even reached 21 feet. But last night in sweltering Sacramento, she uncorked several impressive jumps and her winning mark of 23 feet and 4 inches was her longest jump since 1998 and the second longest in the world this season. "I think I had just a little bit of motivation," said Jones, who appeared devastated last weekend after she finished fifth in the 100 meters, costing her a chance to defend her Olympic title. Jones, who won a record three golds and two bronzes in Sydney in 2000, withdrew from the 200 meters on Saturday after a poor a showing in the event's first qualifying round Friday. She finished last in her heat, but moved on to the semis as the 10th fastest competitor. It was not the Olympic trials farewell Jones had hoped for, but at least she left with her ticket to Athens.
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