Beijing Olympics 2008

The sentencing of disgraced sprinter Marion Jones offered a lesson to young people “about the importance of making good choices and honoring the value of clean competition,” United States Olympic Committee (USOC) Chief Executive Officer Jim Scherr said on Friday.
Olympic medalist Jones was sentenced to six months in prison on Friday for lying to federal prosecutors about her steroid use. District Court Judge Kenneth Karas imposed the sentence after Jones pleaded guilty to two charges last October, when she retired from athletics and tearfully confessed to betraying the trust of her fans after years of denying she used performance enhancing drugs.
“Today’s sentencing is illustrative of just how far-reaching and serious the consequences of cheating can be,” Scherr said in a statement e-mailed to Xinhua.
“The fact that an athlete with so much talent and promise, who so many people looked up to, made the decision to cheat is a terrible disappointment,” he said.
“This unfortunate situation does, however, offer a lesson to young people about the importance of making good choices and honoring the value of clean competition.”
Karas gave Jones six months for lying about steroid use and two months — to run concurrently — for misleading federal investigators about a check fraud case involving her ex-boyfriend, former 100 meters world record holder Tim Montgomery.

Jones, 32, has been stripped of the five athletics medals she won in the Sydney Olympics, three of them gold. All her performances as of September 2000 have been erased from the record books.

from: beijing2008.cn