Cloud of suspicion still hangs over Jones' head

Sorry, but I still don't believe Marion Jones.

Trouble is, I don't know whom to believe, if anyone. When it comes to performance-enhancing drugs and sports, the doping genie is so far out of the pillbox, I don't know if we can believe today's athletes compete on anything resembling a chemically neutral field.

Unfortunately, track and field has become a lot like professional boxing, which threatens to ascend to higher moral ground by default. In recent years, enough dirt has been dumped on track stars and officials to cover a landfill. Indeed, credibility and truthfulness in the sport seem as slippery to grasp as a promoter's tuxedo.

On the surface, Jones, who won five Olympic medals at Sydney six years ago, seems to have regained some trustworthiness. The 30-year-old international superstar has been cleared of taking a blood-boosting hormone after a positive "A" test for the drug following her first sprint title in four years at the U.S. track and field championships in June.

The backup "B" test came back negative for EPO, according to her lawyers. She faced a two-year ban.

"I have always maintained that I have never, ever taken performance-enhancing drugs, and I am pleased that a scientific process has now demonstrated that fact," Jones said in a statement attributed to her.

First, let's slow down the Fastest Woman on Earth.

It is true that Jones, inspired as a child by the track exploits of Florence Griffith Joyner and Jackie Joyner-Kersee, always has defended her integrity by claiming she never used such underhanded means.

However, it is an Olympian leap of logic to be cleared of any doping in one meet and then claim that means you never used performance-enhancing drugs.

There isn't a "scientific process" anywhere that could tell us if she previously conned the system and escaped detection. Maybe, in addition to being a great Olympian, Jones has been a world-class cheat, too.

Oftentimes, rumors unfairly dog athletes. In Jones' case, the drug cloud has hovered since her days as a teenage track phenom. Before the Olympic trials for Barcelona in 1992, she caused a commotion when she did not show up for an out-of-competition drug test.

Actually, the circumstantial evidence that she has doped is substantial. It includes testimony by her ex-husband, C.J. Hunter, the former shot-putter who told federal investigators he witnessed her using a variety of performance-enhancing drugs during a period of years.

Jones' inner circle also has included a famous coach (Trevor Graham) under suspicion for his relationships with banned dopers, and her former boyfriend and drug-tainted recordholder (Tim Montgomery).

Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative mastermind Victor Conte long ago said he supplied Jones with steroids, an allegation that resulted in a lawsuit and a subsequent out-of-court settlement, though Conte never retracted his statements.

Furthermore, there is no logical reason to believe that Jones is completely out of the cross hairs of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency or the federal government's ongoing probe of illicit drug use by athletes.

When you come right down to the finish line, it's becoming harder to verify anyone's veracity in this.

Too many lies are being told by athletes and track officials. There are too many leaks by agencies and too many drug-test reversals. There are doubts about the effectiveness of some tests and the alleged independence of laboratories, and concerns over a breach of information that is a troubling trend. Careers and reputations are at stake; more transparency is needed when dispensing justice.

Then there is Dick Pound, for whom the phrase "due process" appears to be anathema. He's the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, which has presided over the cases of some big-time flubbed drug tests in recent years. At the moment, Tour de France winner Floyd Landis awaits his day in court after his positive drug test following this summer's cycling marathon.

For many, Pound comes off as a one-man jury whose public condemnations of athletes undermine the legitimacy and fairness of the process. In an op-ed column he wrote for the Ottawa Citizen last month, Pound mockingly suggested the champion U.S. cyclist, who has denied using synthetic testosterone, might have been "ambushed by a roving squad of Nazi frogmen" who then injected him against his will.

Before Jones' remarkable achievement at Sydney, which included three gold medals, she said her real goal was to be "mentioned in the same sentence as Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali or Pele." This week's news does little to change our mind that a question mark, not an exclamation point, is most appropriate at the end of the sentence named Marion Jones.

E-mail Jon Saraceno at jons@usatoday.com

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