[caption id="attachment_2215" align="alignright" width="244" caption="Photo credit: Dennie Warren/Cayman News Service"]
[/caption]Cydonie was just one of the athletes who was cheated out of her moment and medal by now-disgraced American sprinter Marion Jone during Jones' drug-fuelled heyday in the early 00s. Cydonie placed 4th to Jones in the 100 metres at the 2001 World Championships but since Jones was stripped of many of her medals in 2007 after confessing to doping, Cydonie moved up to bronze.
Indeed, she is one of many islandista athletes were deprived of glory due to Jones' cheating. From the 20001 World Champs, the list includes Bahamian track queens Debbie Fergusson (gold in the 100m) and Chandra Sturrup (bronze in the 200m).
From the 2000 Summer Olympics, the list is even longer - Pauline Davis-Thompson (gold in the 200m), Jamaicans Tayna Lawrence (silver in the 100m but widely held to be the real gold medal winner since Greek Ekaterina Thanou's wins are under a cloud of suspicion for years now), Beverley McDonald (bronze in the 200m) and former Jamaican rep and ... sprint queen Merlene Ottey (bronze in the 100m). We respect Merlene but that gets a hm from us. However, the IOC took the step of upgrading both Tayna and Merlene while leaving Thanou only as the silver medallist.
But back to Cydonie who finally got her hands on her medal at a special ceremony at the ongoing CARIFTA Games yesterday.
And while it's not the same as stepping on the medla podium in front of the world and seeing your flag go up, we at Islandista think it is especially poignant and fitting that she got her moment of glory in front of her home crowd in Cayman and more importantly, in front of our future generation of Caribbean sprinters.
Show them how to fight the good fight to the end, Cydonie. Congrats.
Congrats Cydonie! What's also ironic is that Marion Jones is an islandista too, Belizean-American. Tsk, tsk.
ReplyDelete