Sports: Marion Jones

Less than a month after Floyd Landis lost his Tour de France win, we now have Marion Jones admitting to doping and having to give up her gold medals.

Whenever an athlete (especially someone who waved the American flag as an Olympian) is caught cheating, it's like someone punched you in the gut. It's bad enough to cheat to win, but smiling to all those cheering fans? Signing an autograph for a kid? I don't know how these people can stand it. If it were me, I'd begin to feel like a counterfeit person, a forgery of my true self.

Worst of all, there's the latent suspicion. How many are cheating? Are most of them doping? The world may never know. I suppose if enough people take these drugs, you might be "forced" to do so in the loosest sense of the word, but it's not a great excuse.