FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, June 22, 2004
Contact: Bob Weiner/Sasha Varghese/Taylor Jubanowsky 301-283-0821 or 202-329-1700
MARION JONES NEEDS JUSTICE, NOT JUST HAMMER,
AS MESSAGE TO YOUTH: FORMER WHITE HOUSE DRUG SPOKESMAN;
USADA SHOULD STATE NO EVIDENCE YET, CLEAR TO COMPETE
(Washington, DC) – As USADA’s (the U.S. Anti-Doping
Agency) hammer continues to come down on track superstar Marion Jones,
a detail comes through: “All the evidence so far points to her
innocence,” says Robert Weiner, former White House Drug Policy
Spokesman 1995-2001, whose office helped create USADA. "USADA
should and must target high-profile athletes if they are cheating --
that’s what they are supposed to do. But you can't target people
who are innocent and try to make them guilty, and with the specifics of
the Marion Jones case that seems to be happening.''
Weiner asserts that in Jones's case, “USADA
should make a clear statement that they have no evidence, and until
they do, she, like all athletes with no stains, is in the clear to
compete, but like all athletes, is subject to constant reevaluation
based on actual fact. Marion Jones needs justice, not just a hammer, as
the right message to America’s youth.”
Weiner points to the apparent evidence to date: A
check first thought to be hers with her name was not signed by her but
by her then-husband, C.J. Hunter, himself guilty of doping. The
lab’s log showed a man’s world-class times, not a woman’s – and she had
a child with partner Tim Montgomery, 100-meter world record holder now
under investigation. At the time she was supposedly tested,
she was literally not there but on a daylong flight to Sydney,
Australia. Her “link” to the BALCO lab was to buy a legal
zinc-magnesium supplement you can get at any local nutrition
store. Most recently, poignantly, on June 16 she passed a
double-certified lie detector test where she said she never used
performance-enhancing drugs.
“Already this scandal has had a tremendously
damaging effect on her reputation and possibly her ability to prepare
for the upcoming Olympic Trials and Games. Even if Jones is
absolved of all charges, she will suffer from the effects of USADA’s
unyielding probe,” Weiner, who has also been the U.S. House Narcotics
Committee’s spokesman, contends.
Weiner points out, “We want USADA to be aggressive
in hunting and disciplining illegal drug users in sports, but they
cannot be trigger-happy and arbitrary. It would hurt Americans
even more if USADA were to wrongfully prevent Marion Jones from
competing in the 2004 Olympics.”
“Hundreds in this country have received the death
penalty and their innocence has been realized too late – for Marion
Jones, being barred from the Olympics is a death sentence,” he states.
“In the case of Marion Jones, youth are seeing an
agenda-driven USADA leadership miss the point. So far, absolutely
nothing has surfaced that says that we should deny ourselves the joy of
her potentially winning more Olympic gold medals for the United
States,” Robert Weiner concludes.
Source: Robert Weiner Associates, Tel. 301-283-0821 or 202-329-1700