Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
April 18, 2008, Washington Post

Who's Cheating Whom?

The International Olympic Committee announced last week that the eight American women who raced with Marion Jones on the 100- and 400-meter relay teams at the 2000 Olympics have to give back their medals.

Jones admitted last year that she cheated during the 2000 Games by taking steroids, illegal and dangerous performance-enhancing drugs. Jones is now in prison, in part for lying about her steroid use, and she has returned her five Olympic medals. That seems fair. After all, she clearly cheated to win.

But is it fair to demand that her teammates return their medals? No one has suggested that they cheated or knew that she was cheating. On the other hand, would they have won those events without her?

The Jones situation reminds me of when a few kids act up in class and the teacher cancels recess for everyone. Or when a high school team has to forfeit all of the games it won because one player flunked a class and was ineligible to play.

I understand that sports officials, including those who run the Olympics, need strict rules against cheating. But is it fair to punish everyone on a team because one person makes a mistake?

If her teammates had known Jones was cheating, they probably would have wanted to replace her to make sure they weren't disqualified. But if they simply suspected she might be using illegal drugs -- as some people thought -- what could they have done?

In making its decision, the Olympic Committee had to think about the athletes on other relay teams who played fair. Some of them were cheated out of medals. I feel bad for the women's teams that came in fourth in those two relays at the 2000 Games in Sydney, Australia. Those athletes put in lots of hard work and had no medals to show for it.

I think the best solution would be to allow Jones's teammates to keep their medals but award new medals to the other teams -- medals they would have won if Jones's teams hadn't competed.

It's not perfect, but it's hard to come up with a perfect solution once somebody breaks the rules.

Adults often warn kids not to cheat because "you are only cheating yourself." That's not always true. As Marion Jones now knows, sometimes cheaters also hurt their teammates, their opponents and everyone who cares about fairness in sports.

Fred Bowen writes KidsPost's sports opinion column and is an author of sports novels for kids.

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