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Marion Jones, former Olympic sprinter, was the Oprah Winfrey show yesterday. This was her first interview since she was released from prison for steriod abuse during her career. Jones explained her decision to lie to federal prosecutors about her use of the once-undetectable designer steroid THG, called “the clear” by clients of the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (BALCO). “And so when they showed it to me and they said this is the substance, and I knew that I had taken that substance, I made the decision that I was going to lie and I was going, you know, try and cover it up,” Jones told Winfrey.

As you may recall, Jones pleaded guilty on October 2007 to two charges of making false statements to federal investigators in 2003. Having denied for years that she had ever taken steroids, Jones admitted she had started using THG in 1999 and continued using it into 2001. Because she admitted to it, Jones got her five Olympic medals taken away. “It wasn’t as difficult to give back the medals because it’s not about the hardware,” the 33-year-old athlete told Winfrey. “It was about that memory. So that memory is what will be tarnished.” She also discussed how it was being locked away during her sentence.

Source: UsWeekly