Salvitore Stitchmo wrote:
One of the funniest and most obvious similarities almost all dopers that get caught have, is the "but I only started in..../only did it between...." statement.
Clearly to cheat in something as kind of holistically unimportant in sport and then (in the case of Marion, Lance, Bonds et al) vehemently deny it until you are blue in the face, there has to be a considerable amount of mental gymnastics and odd brain firings happening because humans by in large aren't programmed to lie (hence why most normal folk also show certain physical phenomena when they do).
My guess is that this verbal response is simply the last of the mental gymnastics that seems plausible and possibly believable for them to keep lying about. When you resort to doping, you are in essence conceding that your natural physical self simply isn't good enough to win in your sport without it. But at the same time you still need to maintain the mindset of believing you are better than your opponents because of course one of your justifications for doping is the assumption your opponents are doping too and you are simply evening the playing field.
It's this mindset that reveals itself with that oddly common statement. It's basically trying to convince us and themselves that "hey I was still really good without it (hence look at my performances when I "wasn't" cheating)" and this satisfies the delusion they have that in their minds they were still the best athlete regardless of cheating or not (which, even if they were, is impossible to know/prove once you cheat).
What does this mean regarding Marion Jones? None of what she says is believable, she's lying. So PR's/performances/medals with respect to alleged doping timelines according to Marion Jones means nothing. You can simply assume she cheated her entire career, which actually could very well be the case given she was banned from track as early as a high schooler.
Another amusing and obvious similarity are the fans with no obvious credentials or inside knowledge about specific elite doping, or the individual histories of each athlete, taking the liberty of deciding for themselves, based on their gut, which "facts" can be true, and which "unknowns" it is safe to assume.
This also looks like mental gymnastics. Your long rationalization looks like the real goal is for you to justify that your assumptions are safe assumptions.
I'm wondering honestly, what is a possible alternative for an athlete who confesses? When asked "when did you start", the athlete must necessarily answer in the form of "I started then". As to the second part "only did it in between" -- maybe I've missed all of them, but that doesn't strike me as something athletes generally say. I can only recall one athlete saying something along those lines.
This alleged "high school ban" is certainly something that needs a better explanation from the conspiracy theorist fans. Recall 1992 pre-dates WADA, and USADA, and well-defined "whereabouts" rules and athlete obligations, by nearly a decade, and that Jones was still in high school, so hardly considered a "seasoned pro" who should know better. Apparently, she successfully argued that the letter notifying her of the random drug test she missed was misplaced in her coach's office. This was sufficient to overturn the ban, but this whole event is not relevant to the question of whether she doped in 1992. Regardless of your stance on the credibility of the mis-communicated notification, a missed test is not a finding that she doped.
Side note: in 1992, in the USA, a missed test could result in a 4-year ban? I see why WADA was necessary to add consistent punishments globally.