Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Marion Jones Seeks Sympathy on Oparah


Marion Jones recently made an appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" seeking sympathy and admitting that she made a mistake when she did not tell the truth. She probably still is not telling the truth when she claimed she could have won the medals even without using PED's.

If you really believe that, why would you cheat? So you could beat the competition by an additional one-one hundredth of a second? Fans of track and field are not that neurotic: either you win the gold or you don't. They don't care or remember what your margin of victory was. Quick: anyone know Usain Bolt's margin of victory in either the 100 or 200? I thought so.

The reason she gave for not telling the truth in a tearful letter written to her children while in prison was "because I didn’t love myself enough to tell the truth". Great statement and better yet, excellent audience and the tears definitely helped sell the whole story. However, at the end of the day, you cheated. You lied about it and denied it for years, going so far to write a book and claim that you were clean.

What would have worked better for a comeback, would have been to take full responsibility and say you were a misguided person attracted to the fame and fortune of athletic greatness and would do anything necessary to achieve your goal. Now, older and wiser, you see the error of your ways and seek the public's forgiveness. That would have went over huge with the Oprah crowd. Once again Marion, you blew it.

Conveniently, there was no mention of the check writing fraud that led to her incarceration.

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