Marion Jones - the tip of the iceberg?

In Jones's case pride went before a calamitous fall, and most of the blame for this was hers, but in the murky world of drug abuse in sport there is an unacceptable randomness in testing, detection and action. Whilst the notorious Jones was found out and will pay the price how many thousands of others in all sports escape the net?

The President of US Track and Field, Bill Roe, said after Jones conviction that it was a '…vivid morality play that graphically illustrates the wages of cheating in any facet of life, on or off the track'.

Well up to a point it does Mr Roe, for Ms Jones and her accomplices for sure. But how many other athletes, in all sports, have cheated and are cheating without having to pay any 'wages' at all? Senator George Mitchell's investigation into in baseball showed performance enhancing drug (steroid) abuse to be endemic.

It is vital that the acceptance of Mitchell's recommendations by Major League Baseball turns into real action and the acid test of this will be if some of the stars at whom the Senator pointed his finger are banned from the sport. It hasn't happened yet, but it really does seem that in baseball there has to be a Marion Jones moment.

The case of Ben Johnson, who 'won' the 100m at 1988 Olympics, but later flunked a drugs test and forfeited his gold medal, should be salutary. In 1991 Johnson was allowed to return but performed poorly and in 1993 he was banned for life by the IAAF for testing positive again.

The learning points from the Johnson case are first that abuses as outrageous as his should always lead to life bans - with life really meaning life. Secondly that missing drug tests has to be seen as serious as being diagnosed as a positive user. Finally that the more an athlete protests his or her innocence the more it seems likely that they are 'protesting too much'.

Denials are part of the ritual

The drug abuse sequence in respect of individual athletes follows a standard pattern. There is a win in an event that seems exceptional and at variance with the athlete's previous form (Jones at Sydney the classic case).

Then there are rumblings of discontent often started by disappointed beaten competitors (Carl Lewis, for example, who said after Ben Johnson's win: 'That [100 metres] race will be looked at for many years, for more reasons than one.'

Then there are the denials, the investigations, more denials and eventually - in some cases - there is the conviction and the ban. Meanwhile the greedy entrepreneurs who make the substances are finding ever cleverer ways to make them detection-proof. And athletes are getting away with missing drug tests because they are 'careless' (which is how Steve Cram defended Christine Ohuruogu).

In my view these offenders should be treated no differently from those who hide away from a test because they believe it might be positive. Tough? Maybe - but drug abuse is so widespread that 'zero tolerance may be the only way.

Role models or money machines?

The New York judge in the Marion Jones case said that top athletes 'entertain, inspire [and] serve as role models' - and if we look back to the days when the Olympian ideals were truly practiced by the likes of Jesse Owens then he is right.

But whilst Owens was an amateur, as they all were in those halcyon days, today's competitors are mainly in it for the money. The fame and the 'role modeling' is incidental. This may seem a cynical view and I am not suggesting that all athletes are only money machines devoid of morals.

But even the most honourable of today's sportsmen probably places pursuit of fortune as the main motivator - careers are short and maximisng the money is what it's all about. In these circumstances some, perhaps a majority, of competitors in some sports such as track and field, baseball and cycling will be tempted to enhance their performances illegally if they think that they can get away with it.

Or they will indulge in a bit of cheating, or gamesmanship to secure a sneaky advantage. Sport mirrors life and reflects our weaknesses back to us - but if there is a million dollar bonus around the corner might not we all be vulnerable to temptation and look away?