George Kimball/America At Large: The spectre of Marion Jones wriggling in her chair under the hot lights of an interrogation room must have rekindled some memories over the last few days, at least in Ireland, where the notion of a highly decorated female Olympic athlete who, despite a growing dossier of circumstantial evidence, has never failed a drug test, would surely be a familiar one.
The fact that the object of the scrutiny was formerly married to a weight-tossing, confirmed drug cheat only heightens the sense of déjà vu.
Several weeks ago Mark Spitz, the American swimming legend whose seven gold medals might have symbolised the 1972 Munich Games had other matters not intervened, advanced the possibility that the United States should withdraw from this summer's Olympics.
Spitz's contention was that "security concerns" might "put athletes in harm's way". The Olympic icon, who happens to be Jewish, made it clear he was speaking as an individual and not as a representative of the US Olympic Committee, but said his fears were genuine.
"We are looking under the microscope at all the different terrorist acts and we know there is a high degree of probability that something could happen in Athens," Spitz told a BBC radio programme in late April.
As the scenario unfolds it becomes increasingly clear that many American athletes will indeed bypass this summer's Games - not out of concern for security, although that may in the end become a convenient public explanation.
Rather, it now appears there may be a concerted effort by our Olympic officials to persuade many athletes to forgo a trip to Athens based on any flimsy pretext - a feigned groin injury, fear of terrorists, the dog ate my homework. It doesn't matter. Just say No.
This strategy already has a precedent. The shot-putter CJ Hunter, you may recall, quietly withdrew on the eve of the Sydney Games, citing a "knee injury". Only much later was it confirmed Hunter had failed two drug tests. Hunter was at the time the husband of Ms Jones, who went on to win three gold medals in Sydney. Not one American official so much as blinked.
For a century Americans have viewed their Olympic participation from a stance of haughty superiority. When Jim Thorpe was discovered to have played semi-pro baseball under an assumed name, US officials ordered him to forfeit his 1912 decathlon gold medal. When, beginning in 1976, the East Germans developed better living through chemistry, we did our best to compete despite the un-level playing field. And we hardly need remind you of the tone of moral superiority in which Americans revelled at the eventual unmasking of Michelle Smith de Bruin.
As Athens approaches it becomes increasingly evident we have become the East Germans of 2004. Ironically, it took the connection of Victor Conte and his Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (Balco) to the great American pastime of baseball to turn rampant drug-cheating into a federal case. That many of our top Olympic athletes were minnows trapped in the seine qualifies as collateral damage.
Balco claims to be in the business of supplying "nutritional supplements", but its principal value to athletes, professional and "amateur", came in the fact it was not only on the cutting edge of the most advanced performance-enhancing drugs but was light years ahead of the rest of the world in preventing their detection.
At this point the evidence against home-run king Barry Bonds is every bit as circumstantial as it is against Marion Jones. What US Olympic operatives are now faced with is the task of persuading athletes to boycott Athens on their own hook. The concern isn't over the moral issue of sending a tainted sprinter to Greece. It is, rather, over the fear that our boys and girls will go to Athens and win a pile of medals, only to be subsequently unmasked should the IOC's testing procedures suddenly catch up to Balco's.
That has already happened in at least one instance. Kelli White, the sprinter who won both sprints at last summer's World Championships in Paris, last week signed off on a plea-bargain, admitting to the use of EPO, and accepted a two-year ban from competition, despite the absence of a positive drug test.
When the FBI raided Balco's California offices in January, among the items discovered was a check for $8,300, drawn on Jones's account. The check may in fact have been signed by Hunter, her former husband, but Conte has reportedly told federal officials he supplied performance-enhancing drugs to Jones. Jones, for her part, has acknowledged a "minimal relationship" with Conte, as has her current companion, the sprinter Tim Montgomery.
Last Monday, Jones and her attorney met for three hours with officials of the US Anti-Doping Agency, which presented her with its findings.
"I didn't see anything that would provide a basis for them to go forward," said the lawyer, Joseph Burton. "In my mind, what ought to come out of this is that she ought to be exonerated."
If Olympic officials are unsuccessful in persuading suspected cheats to withdraw, they may do it for them, informing Jones and others that their presence in Athens would be unwelcome. Jones, for one, has already said she will sue if that happens. In a nation where due process and the presumption of innocence are highly valued, she may well have a case.
"Today, I answered each and every question that USADA had," Jones said in a statement distributed after Monday's meeting.
"I made clear to the USADA what I have made clear to everyone at every step of this entire process: I have never taken an illegal performance-enhancing substance. There is nothing more I can do. It is time to allow me to put this issue behind me once and for all."
Right. Fat chance of that happening.
