In the past sports were taken as form of entertainment or an activity to maintain a healthy body or manage body weight. This made various societies around the globe to encourage its members especially children to engage in sports in order to stay healthy and avoid boredom which might force them to engage in bad behavior such as crime or substance abuse to escape the boredom feeling. However, in the past two decades, sports have become money making machines, i.e. athletes especially track races athletes are in positions to make millions in seconds (Nationwide Children's Hospital, 2015). Some of the famous athletes like Usain Bolt makes millions of dollars as payment for just appearing not even winning a race or competing in that race. These famous athletes are paid huge money as enticement for them to participate in these games. The multinationals companies are in hot pursue of these athletes in an effort ensure they endorse or wear their items while competing in any game event or participating any public event. This is the new trend in advertising companies have embrace to push their products or services to the fans who adores and identify with a certain athletes. These endorsements are not for charitable or free, they come with a price. Thus, the fame, the wealth and the cut throat competitions attach to sports have pushed some athletes to look for additional help which will enhance their performance in the field (Claudia and Creado, 2014). Thus, doping cases have become rampant and as result ruin careers and tarnish the names of some of the most decorated, respected and promising athletes such as Mario Jones. Mario Jones was one of my favorite women athletes in late 1990s. I could not afford to miss her in action due to her electric and powerful performance on the track and field. She kept the adrenaline of most of her fans on a high note. On a sad note, Mario Jones was big, beautiful and respected athletes on field and track sports but things turned ugly when she tested positive on doping (performance-enhancing drugs). When the rumors about her doping practice surfaced, there was a great disbelief across the globe since she had accomplished many things and got a lot of recognition from all walks of life. The castle she had managed to build over the years came down within hours after the announcement on doping. As result of the doping practice, she lost almost everything from finances, to the medals she had won after 2000 to friends; in addition, to this she was ban from participating in Olympic Games by the international Olympic committee (Turnbull, 2013).
Marion Lois Jones is a former American field and track athlete born on 12th of October, 1975. She was well decorated world champion for years in the field and track category in women. Her fame and career came to its pick at the summer Olympic which were held in Sidney, Australia. At this event she managed to won five medals in her categories i.e. field and track events. This was a great achieve and she went into history books as a first woman to achieve a win of this magnitude at particular Olympic Games (A&E Television Networks, 2015). This made her to be known among the fastest women globally. Unfortunately, in 2006, Marion Jones after undergoing routine testing, her test showed she was using banned substance. Fortunately, after several test she was cleared on the substance abuse claim and given the green light to continue competing. However, after a year that is in 2007, Marion Jones confessed publicly that she was using muscles enhancing drugs and the doping claims made against her were true. She confessed in a court of law. In an interview with Oprah, Jones claimed she was given the muscles stimulating substance by her former coach who happened to be her husband (Turnbull, 2013). She also admitted for lying to the federal investigators from Homeland Security about using steroids injections. In addition to the doping scheme, Jones admitted to have to take part in a check- fraud scheme (Lisa, 2013). This public admission in a court of law prompts her to return the medals which had won at the Sidney Olympic Games. This confession landed Mario Jones in prison, where she spent six months behind bars in 2008 (WNBA Tulsa Shock, 2011).
After serving her sentence, Mario Jones started working on a campaign called “take a break”, where she is preaching a message of not rushing into making decisions (WNBA Tulsa Shock, 2011). In her campaign she admits given a second chance, she would not have a tried to lie to federal investigators when the doping claim against her came into the limelight. In several clip about her campaign she narrates how she told her children about her bad decisions and life in prison (Lisa, 2013).
After the leaving the prison, Mario Jones went back to her former sports i.e. basket ball. She was a guard for the North Carolina's national championship team before joining track and field sports (WNBA Tulsa Shock, 2011). Her first season with the Shock was brilliant featuring in 34 games in the seasons (Lisa, 2013). However, after the first season, her performance went down and the she parted ways with the team on a mutual agreement.
References
A&E Television Networks. (2015). Marion Jones. Retrieved from http://www.biography.com/people/marion-jones-9357466
Claudia L Reardon and Shane Creado. (2014). Drug abuse in athletes. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4140700/
Lisa capretto. (2013). Marion Jones On Doping, Prison: What She Told Her Children (VIDEO). Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/25/marion-jones-doping-prison_n_2936257.html
Michael S. Schmidt and Lynn Zinser. (2007). Jones Pleads Guilty to Lying About Drugs - New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/05/sports/othersports/05cnd-balco.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&_r=0
Nationwide Children's Hospital. (2015). Abuse of Drugs to Enhance Sports Performance: Winning at Any Cost :: Nationwide Children's Hospital. Retrieved from http://www.nationwidechildrens.org/abuse-of-drugs-to-enhance-sports-performance-winning-at-any-cost
Simon Turnbull. (2013). How last Oprah confession by Marion Jones hit a bum note - Athletics - More Sports - The Independent. Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/athletics/how-last-oprah-confession-by-marion-jones-hit-a-bum-note-8456568.html
WNBA Tulsa Shock. (2011). Tulsa Shock cut Marion Jones, former Olympic gold-medal sprinter. Retrieved from http://espn.go.com/wnba/story/_/id/6791005/tulsa-shock-cut-marion-jones-former-olympic-gold-medal-sprinter
