Victims of Marion Jones

As expected, the International Olympic Committee yesterday officially stripped Marion Jones of her medals for the 2000 Olympics - three gold and two bronze - as a result of her admission that she used performance-enhancing substances.

Actually, Jones will be sentenced next month for lying to federal investigators in the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative case, and Jones has already relinquished the medals themselves. She's also banned from attending the Olympic Games in Beijing.

However, even more sad is that eight others could lose their medals as a result of what Jones did - her teammates on two relay teams. That has yet to be determined, but it doesn't look good for them.

It shows that the decision to use performance-enhancing drugs doesn't just affect the individual athlete who makes that bad decision. Victims include the clean athletes who lose out to a person who cheats. And in the Jones case, eight innocents might forfeit the reward of a lifetime dream.