The Long Run

Marion Jones’ Relay from Martyr to Mammie

By Marbre Stahly-Butts

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Cadres of journalists with cameras and microphones and a mélange of onlookers—fans turned voyeurs—gaze up at an unrecognizable image of Marion Jones. Today she stands before a podium quite unlike the myriad of rostrums audiences have grown used to her gracing; most notably the Sydney, Australia Olympic platform which she climbed a total of five times in 2000. Then, she was an iconic image of gold and grace. An Athena-like specimen as womanly as Venus, Jones was emblematic of American progress and prestige.

Now everything is different. On October 5, 2007, Jones had come to confess. Her starched pink V-necked blouse frames her elongated neck, now turtle-like and tucked disgracefully beneath her collar. This neck that was once an emblem of strength—which lilted ever so slightly with a hint of sexual allure on the cover of Vogue only six years before—is rendered tragic in its inability to hold her head high.

As the press conference begins, Fox News, CNN and BBC America all interrupt their normally scheduled programming. Jones begins timidly, amid the clicking of cameras and the chaos of press by thanking her “dear mother.” Her voice shakes. The words drip from her lips and America can hear the tears as she exhales the sentence: “…and so it is with a great amount of shame that I stand before you.” The shame is weighty, palpable even for those not in the audience. Her voice breaks shrilly with the mention of her children.

Jones has just pled guilty to two counts of making false statements to federal agents, and she is sorry. She is so very sorry. “It was incredibly stupid,” she mutters. Each apology coats the sense of pity that is heavy in the air. At least she’s not denying it like some others ( read: Barry Bonds) the Fox News commentator suggests, but there is no doubt she has come before the American public to attest that she is a woman fallen from grace.