Marion Jones Confesses to Doping and Retires: Can we Still Trust Athletes?

So the speculation has ended: Marion Jones recently admitted to lying to federal agents, who were investigating her drug use. Still, Shaun Assael of ESPN writes that “Only the truly naive will believe this version of Jones’ story.

Jones’ confession follows Floyd Landis loss of his Tour de France title due to drug use. With all of these doping-related scandals, athletes and sports in general risk losing our trust.

Without a doubt, this is a bad thing. We all rage at the unfairness of life, at people who get ahead because they know the right people or invested in improvements like breast implants, which can arguably be interpreted as artificial enhancements of sorts. We can also argue that Yao Ming enjoys an unfair advantage because the Chinese government set up his 6′10″ dad with his 6′8″ mom. We love sports because the game is supposed to be the last refuge of fairness.

Is it any wonder that we come down hard on athletes who are caught cheating? Performance-enhancing drugs threaten to destroy the illusion that successful athletes win based on their own merit. The cycling world is losing its audience, thanks to all the negative publicity focused on the story of Tour de France’s recently dethroned champion.

Organized sports will suffer terribly, as more athletes are found guilty of wrongly tipping the scales in their favor. Can we still look up to our sports heroes and continue believing in them, when some notable examples have broken our trust?

Let’s see if the IOC and all governing bodies involved in the 2008 Olympics can come up with a system that truly keeps the game clean. It doesn’t help that it’s now cool to win at any cost.