Olympics
Marion Jones’s Olympic Teammates May Also Be Stripped of Medals

Oct 12, 2007

Just when you thought you couldn’t be any more disappointed with former track and field superstar Marion Jones, who recently pled guilty to using steroids during the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, you realize that she didn’t just hurt herself. Jones, who earned two individual gold medals and one bronze, also won two medals in relay events. The IOC currently has to decide whether the other women on the team also have to surrender their medals.  

It has been a tumultuous few months for Jones who recently declared bankruptcy and plead guilty to her involvement with a counterfeit check ring along with her steroid admission. The IOC demanded that Jones return her medals for redistribution and on Monday she surrendered all five of them.  

While most sports fans and insiders feel cheated by Jones’s improper conduct and think that turning over the medals is just part of her just desserts, other members of her team may also be affected by her steroid use.  

Passion Richardson, who competed with Jones on the bronze medal winning 400-relay team told the CBS Early Show, “I competed fairly, and I should not have to suffer the consequences for someone else’s bad decisions and choices.”  

She along with runners Jearl Miles-Clark, Monique Hennagan, La Tasha Colander-Richardson, Andrea Anderson, and Nanceen Perry could all have their medals stripped because of Jones decision to do drugs.  

"To make the Olympic Games was my ultimate dream," Richardson told NBC news after it was announced that because of Jones’s admission the other team mates would also be disqualified. "To have that tarnished by someone who was disrespectful, who showed no concern for her teammates, who didn't think about what the ramifications were if she were ever exposed -- now she has benefited from everything she has done and now the rest of her teammates, we're left to have to carry what she's done."  

Richardson was also upset that Jones did not address her teammates when she made her press statement outside the courtroom.  

“"She has yet to apologize to us, the people who it directly affected," Richardson claimed to Inside Edition.  

U.S. Olympics Chief, Peter Ueberroth has already stated that it was his opinion that the medals should be relinquished, but further investigation into the matter will have to take place.  

If it is clear that current doping regulations that require a team to forfeit medals if one member is found to be in violation of doping restrictions were in place during the Sydney games, then all of the women will have to return their awards and will be wiped from the history books.  

The IOC should reach a final decision by early December.