Taking Flight

She's on solid ground as a sprinter, but to land a place in Olympic history Marion Jones must make the leap of her life

By Kelli Anderson

Competition is a fact of life in the household of the world's fastest woman, Marion Jones, and the world shot put champion, C.J. Hunter. Waiting to go on the air at a New York City area radio station earlier this year, the couple came upon a Foosball table in the reception area. The ensuing battle was so raucous -- at one point the ball landed on the receptionist's desk -- that the deejays felt compelled to start broadcasting play-by-play. "We both compete at such a high level, and neither one of us likes to lose," says Jones, who, for the record, won that Foosball game. "So we'll be playing Scrabble, and there will be trash-talking. We played H-O-R-S-E awhile ago, and it was late and the lights were bad, and he happened to beat me. I've never heard the end of it." Jones knows she'll be hearing far worse than her husband's needling if she fails to accomplish the goal she set for herself two years ago, a goal that has captivated the world of track and field ever since: to win gold medals in the 100- and 200-meter sprints, the long jump and two relays at the Sydney Olympics.

"If something happens and it doesn't turn out that way, then I'll just have to deal with it," says Jones, sitting in a trailer outside a studio in Wilmington, N.C., where she is shooting one of the half-dozen national TV ads she'll be seen in this year. "Right now, at 24, I think I can do what I say I can do. I've always been that way. As a kid I was a little badass, confident, able to walk around and do it all, or at least think I could do it all."

There has been very little evidence to suggest Jones can't do it all. At the U.S. Olympic Trials in Sacramento in July she continued three years of domination in the 100 and the 200 with decisive victories in both events. In the long jump, facing elimination after fouling twice, she uncorked a fair jump of 22'1 3/4" then won the event with a leap of 23' 1/2", her longest in two years. "You can't break her," says her coach, Trevor Graham. "That's what I love about her. Even though she was under a lot of pressure in the long jump, she was having fun."

Even in the 400, an event Jones rarely runs, never trains for and generally despises because it is, she says, "incredibly painful," she is among the world's best: Her 400 time of 49.59 at the Mount SAC Relays in April was the fastest by an American woman through early August, earning her a spot on the U.S. 4x400 relay team.

"Marion is probably the greatest female sprint talent we've seen in the U.S. in a long time," says former Olympic sprinter and onetime 100\!meter world-record holder Leroy Burrell, now the men's and women's track coach at the University of Houston. "She can beat you out of the blocks, she has a higher top speed than anyone else and she doesn't slow down that much. That's a deadly combination."

Add to that an ability -- make that an impatience -- to grasp and perfect technique, a voracious appetite for training and a preperformance focus so intense that it has brought tears to her eyes, and you have a nearly pathological winner. "I hate not winning, and I'm a sore loser," Jones says. "When it's time to perform I have to get that certain mental attitude, or the result might be something that I have found in the past that I really can't deal with."

That "something" would be losing, which would interfere with Jones's long-term plans. "My ultimate goal is to be mentioned among the greats, to be mentioned in the same sentence as Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali or Pelé," says Jones. "I understand it's going to take winning gold medals in this Olympics and being consistent over the years and perhaps touching on some world records. Certainly I'm looking forward to the Olympics, but it is a bigger picture for me."

It is a bigger picture in part because -- like the late Florence Griffith Joyner, the woman whose sprint world records Jones is chasing -- she has a mediagenic combination of speed, charisma and striking good looks that has already served her well in the marketing world. But to fully capitalize on her crossover potential Jones may have to do the seemingly impossible: break Flo-Jo's 12-year-old marks of 10.49 seconds in the 100 and 21.34 in the 200. Jones's personal bests of 10.65 and 21.62 (at altitude) are as close as anyone has come to Flo-Jo's, and Jones believes she can continue to narrow the gap. "I'm nowhere near the point where I can't run any faster," she says.

Make no mistake: What Jones is trying to do in Sydney will be no easier than supplanting Flo-Jo's world records. In no meet has Jones ever competed in all five -- or even in four of the five -- events she hopes to win in Sydney. Nor has any other woman ever attempted to win five events in track and field in one Olympics. Given that, it's almost impossible to say where a five-golds performance would rank among sports' greatest accomplishments. "It's not Joe DiMaggio's 56\!game hitting streak or Mark McGwire's home run record, both of which unfolded over a long period," says Craig Masback, the USA Track and Field CEO. "Nor is it Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game, because that was a single evening. It's being at your best day after day, multiple times a day and multiple times in a night, in this series of events, in this very narrow time period. It's unique."

It's also something Jones has been preparing for almost all her life. The only child of Marion Toler, a legal secretary, and George Jones, a Laundromat operator who left the family when his daughter was a toddler, Jones spent a lot of time tagging along behind her half brother, Albert Kelly, and his friends, all five or six years older than she was. Able to hold her own with them, she obliterated the competition when she competed against girls her own age. At age eight when Jones predicted she would be an Olympic champion, no one argued the point.

After dazzling high school careers in basketball and in track (she won nine California state individual track and field titles and made the '92 Olympic team as an alternate on the 4x100 relay team but declined to go), Jones attended North Carolina, where she had a bigger impact on the basketball court than on the track.

As a freshman point guard Jones averaged 14.1 points and 3.2 assists a game and led her team to the 1994 NCAA title. "Marion brought a championship mentality with her," says Sylvia Crawley, who was the Tar Heels center that year and now plays for the WNBA's Portland Fire. "Before one game she literally cried during the pep talk. I had never known a player who wanted to win so bad it hurt inside."

"Marion set the tone," adds Sylvia Hatchell, the North Carolina coach. "She made everybody come up to her level."

So it has been in track. Since bursting back onto the scene with wins in the 100 and the long jump at the '97 nationals -- less than three months after playing her final college hoops game -- Jones has been virtually unbeatable in the sprints. Which has forced her competitors to work harder.

"Whenever you have someone who comes in and dominates the way Marion does, people make adjustments," says Burrell. "Inger Miller is a prime example. Marion came in and challenged Inger just by dominating for two years. Inger started working on her technique, and she's a better runner as a result."

At last year's worlds, in Seville, Jones won a milestone race in which -- for the first time in history -- six of the eight finalists, including Miller, broke 11 seconds. "Marion has taken the level of sprinting for women to a place where no one thought it could go," says LSU women's coach Pat Henry, whose teams have won 12 of the last 14 NCAA outdoor titles.

Jones says that what sets her apart from other sprinters is that she really loves training. "I've heard some of my competitors complain about how they hate training -- and that is not the case with me at all," she says. "We take off every October, and that is the longest month of my life."

Jones typically does 11Ú2 hours of weight training four times a week plus six days of track work. She says she feels "sloppy" on the rare days when she doesn't work out. "The only reason some people are shocked that she's so confident about winning five golds is that they don't see her train," says Hunter, who is going for Olympic gold in the shot put. "I've never seen anybody work harder at anything than she does. She should be confident."

"If she stays injury-free, I think she'll accomplish what she has set out to do," says two-time Olympic 100-meter champion Gail Devers, who'll be competing in the 100 hurdles in Sydney. "I think that would be great for track and field."

Given Jones's ultracompetitive nature, it's hard to resist considering what other sports she could take to new heights. She'd still like to play basketball professionally, and beyond that she envisions doing triathlons and Eco-Challenges. And take note, Karrie Webb: Jones recently took up golf. She says she finds the new sport "very challenging," but adds, "When I'm faced with a challenge, I usually stick around until I conquer it."

"People say to me, 'Do you think Marion will play pro basketball?'" says Hatchell. "Let's get serious. What were her earnings last year? Seven million? The money in basketball is peanuts compared with track. It's like when Michael Jordan went to baseball. If she does it, it'll be because she wants another challenge."

Unlike Jordan, Jones would be well-qualified for entry into her second pro sport. "Marion Jones would have an immediate impact on any WNBA team," says Renee Brown, league vice president of player personnel. "She's got tremendous speed and quickness, excellent defensive skills and a great understanding of the game. We would love to have her."

Jones still plays the game in her Apex, N.C., driveway with Hunter, his son and daughter from a previous marriage and kids from the neighborhood. "Perhaps I would need a little refining if I were to venture into the league," she says. "But it is a serious consideration. I love the team aspect. Sometimes I miss that."

Another thing Jones says she misses about hoops is the trash-talking, though track has had plenty of that lately. Before the trials Miller told SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, "I'm the best sprinter in the world. I know I'm going to win." Miller finished second to Jones in both sprints at the trials, but afterward Miller said she can run "much, much faster" in Sydney, where she predicted she'd do "serious damage."

Such talk aside, Jones's bid for five golds is most vulnerable in the long jump. Though her performance in Sacramento was impressive, it didn't put to rest concerns about the inconsistency that has plagued her in the event. "She could have a competition like she had in Japan [where she jumped 20'7" and finished fourth in May] at any given time," says Masback. "On the other hand she could set a world record [currently 24'81Ú4"] on any given jump."

In addition to inconsistency, Jones will battle a group of full-time long jumpers in Sydney, including Italy's Fiona May and Russia's Tatyana Kotova, both of whom have jumped farther than Jones this year. "I've never said this was going to be easy," says Jones. "I think that's what drives me -- the fact that it is going to be challenging. There are plenty of critics out there. Some say I won't do it, and some hope I don't. That motivates me, too."

Still in the trailer, she stands up and gets ready to return to the studio for another take. "I'm confident I can do this," says Jones, "and so far, confidence has taken me a long way."

Issue date: SI For Women, September/October 2000