The New York Times
Published: May 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/
She resurfaced in a conflicting blur. In a 100-meter window, Marion Jones suddenly materialized in Mexico as the captivating sprinter with the corrugated abs, the devoted mother with the half-moon smile — and the Balco starlet with no credibility.
In a span of just 11.06 seconds on Saturday night, Jones dialed up a retro image, pulling away from the field just the way she used to, the bird at the tip of a V formation, gaining separation, but not distance, from her complicated past.
Was she the good girl betrayed by bad boys? Or did she need bad boys so she could be good?
Her unlikely victory in Xalapa left some dubious, others joyous and many ambivalent. On a track-and-field Web site, where runners, coaches, officials and even Victor Conte are known to chat under aliases, the message board lit up under the title, "She's b-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-ck!!!!!""You act like there is no evidence against Marion," someone named accelerator wrote on trackandfieldnews.com.
A writer named guru replied, "Put up or shut up."
The back and forth continued for pages, where negative nabobs were met with sunny optimists, where suspicious minds were greeted with rationalized responses.
"She is packing on the muscles," jammin wrote. "Makes you wonder."
Tafnut posted: "This is such a sad thing to say. If anything, she is SMALLER than she was — her muscles stand out because she has obviously lost weight."
Detractors and defenders surfaced as quickly as pop-up ads, but no one vilified Jones, no one wished her 11-month disappearance had been extended into forever, no one cursed her for promising to pursue more medals at the 2008 Summer Games.
Jones escaped the bludgeoning of the Barry Bonds treatment. He is a narcissistic slugger bent on mugging Henry Aaron's home run record. She is the tragic figure caught in a culture of pathological deception.
Is it fair to have Bonds's parallel pal in Balco World streak past scrutiny because she is a sympathetic suspected cheat and he is an odious suspected cheat?
Establish your own bar, personalize it as you like, but Bonds and Jones should be held to the same standard of disdain because they are almost identical in their paths to their inglorious perches.
Neither has ever tested positive for drugs, but both have watched as the Balco bust put away their magic-potion suppliers. For Bonds, it was his trainer, Greg Anderson. For Jones, it was Conte, her star-struck supplement dealer.
Neither Bonds nor Jones has been snared as a culprit in the Balco net, but each is under investigation. For Bonds, that means George Mitchell's vague probe into baseball's steroid era. For Jones, that means the doping police's endless hunt for the truth.
Neither escaped scrutiny in the book "Game of Shadows," and both have been accused of sullying their sport's record books. In achievement terms, the five medals Jones won in the 2000 Sydney Games correspond to Bonds's single-season home run record in 2001.
The similarities end there, though. Bonds is mocked with signs and toy syringes in every city outside his cocoon in San Francisco. Jones is shown tepid applause by crowds not enamored of her but respectful of her status as the sport's pop icon.
This is not to say Bonds shouldn't be razzed and Jones should be harassed. Again, each person can apply his or her own standard — as long as it is equitable treatment for equal suspects.
Otherwise, it reeks of bias, of holding stars accountable because of Q ratings and sexism. Sympathy is a completely natural and commendable emotion as long as the public isn't made a sucker out of it.
If Bonds's power isn't to be trusted — and it is not — neither should Jason Giambi's or Gary Sheffield's, cameo suspect in the Balco case, each better at P.R. than Bonds , each given immunity from fan hostility.
Persona is persuasive. It would be simpler to distinguish a starter's pistol from a smoking gun if not for Jones's ability to obscure the two by obfuscating hard reality with her gentle persona.
It would be simpler to separate the batter's box from a witness stand if Bonds possessed an amiability gene to counteract the guilty look of his body.
Jones has the look of a lost soul. She stood by her "Shrek"-shaped husband, C. J. Hunter, as he cried over being ousted as a doper from the 2000 Sydney Games. She held his hand and propped him up publicly as if to say, "He ain't heavy, he's my husband."
Then Hunter turned on her two years ago by divulging pillow talk of steroid use and images of her injections in interviews with federal prosecutors, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.
She then stood by her boyfriend, Tim Montgomery, in 2004 when he was accused of doping. In a C. J. Hunter redux, Jones split up with him after the scandal, but her judgment of men was in question again two weeks ago after Montgomery was accused of participating in a $5 million money-laundering scheme.
As one Olympic official privately said yesterday, Jones is often portrayed as an innocent bystander who happens to be at every crime scene.
Compassion for Jones is a fine emotion, and contempt for Bonds is an acceptable response — as long as both are applied equally based on the issues and not the image.
E-mail: selenasports@nytimes.com
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