Olympic athlete Marion Jones is no longer running away from her past.
The former track and field star — who won three gold medals and two bronze medals at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and was later stripped of them after admitting to using performance-enhancing drugs — faces her demons head-on with her appearance on Special forces: the toughest test in the world.
And years after being sent to prison for lying to federal authorities and banned from sports, she also recognizes the impact her actions have had on her loved ones.
“When I was convicted, I had two young children, too young to understand, knowing that I was wrong,” Jones, 49, says in the confessional. “The hardest part for me was just knowing that at some point she would have to face the reality of her mother’s choices.”
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She added: “Over the years I have sincerely apologized for letting so many people down and it’s time to move on. That’s not an answer that some people will like, but that’s how I feel right now.”
In 2008, Jones served six months in a federal women’s prison in Fort Worth, Texas for her crimes, which also included her involvement in a check fraud scheme.
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“I’m coming back into the limelight, which I deliberately chose not to be a part of for so long, but I’m back to see what I can really do,” Jones said. “Those were the hardest days of my life.”
In another episode of the series, Jones revealed that she spent 49 days in solitary confinement while incarcerated for fighting with another inmate.
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“If I have to fight, I’m going to fight,” she said, as she faced Kayla Nicole in a hand-to-hand combat challenge in which Jones later injured her ribs.
As for the psychological toll her past behavior took, the former athlete — who won an NCAA national basketball championship as a player at North Carolina and later played a season and a half for her former WNBA team, the Tulsa Shock in 2010 — knows all about it. .
“There are days when I’m actually grateful for some of the, as I like to say, hiccups that happened in my life, because they made me stronger, better, more balanced, and without that experience, I certainly wouldn’t be where I am today, she said.
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Jones later added, “I can’t go back and change things, but I came here to set an example for my kids that courage is to step up when you don’t want to with the possibility that there will be critics, there will be opinions, but you just don’t disappear.”
Special forces: the toughest test in the world airs Wednesdays at 8:00 PM ET on Fox.
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education