Marion Jones, the track and field star from Thousand Oaks who won five medals and worldwide fame at the 2000 Olympic Games in Australia, is expected today to become the most significant athlete to admit to using performance enhancing drugs, after years of fiercely denying it.

Such an admission could lead to Jones’ being stripped of those medals.

As it should.

The apparent plea bargain comes after years of accusations that Jones had boosted her performances with drugs, including an eyewitness account from Victor Conte, founder of Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, that she used a steroid known as “the clear” and knew what it was…Conte later pleaded guilty to steroid distribution. Swept up in that scandal were a number of athletes, baseball star Barry Bonds and Jones among them.

The years of lies, half-truths, rationales disappear when truth finally takes center stage. Interviews and lecture circuit denials are as worthless as her victories.