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 that she used performance-enhancing drugs — is facing her demons head-on with her appearance on Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test.
And years after she was sent to prison for lying to federal authorities and banned from her sport, she also recognizes the impact her actions have had on her loved ones.
“When I was sentenced, I had two young children, too young for them to understand, knowing that I had done wrong,” Jones, 49, says in a confessional. “To me, the hardest part was just knowing at some point, they were going to have to deal with the reality of mom’s choices.”
She added, “Over the years, I’ve shared my sincere apology for letting down so many people and it’s time to move on. It’s not an answer that some people will like, but that’s how I feel now.”
In 2008, Jones served six months at a federal women’s prison in Fort Worth, Texas for her crimes, which also included her involvement in a check-fraud scheme.
“I’m putting myself back in the public spotlight, which I purposely chose not to be a part of for so long, but I’m back to see really what I can do,” Jones said. “The hardest days of my life during that time.”
In the second episode of the series, Jones revealed that she spent 49 days in solitary confinement while in prison for fighting another inmate.
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“If I have to fight, I will fight,” she said, while facing off against Kayla Nicole in a hand-to-hand combat challenge in which Jones later injured her ribs.
As far as the mental toll her past behavior has taken, the former athlete — who won the NCAA basketball national championship as a player at North Carolina and who later played a season-and-a-half for WNBA’s former team the Tulsa Shock in 2010 — is aware of it all.
“There are days where I actually am grateful for some of the, what I like to say, hiccups that have happened in my life, because they’ve made me stronger, better, more balanced, and without that experience, I certainly wouldn’t be where I’m at today,” she said.
Jones later added, “I can’t go back and change things, but I’ve come here to set an example for my kiddos that courage is stepping out when you don’t want to with the possibility that there’s going to be critics, there’s going to be opinions, but you just don’t disappear.”
Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on Fox.
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