Major Developments Major Developments by Calendar Year

Marion Jones who was born on October 12, 1975 in Los Angeles, California, is a former world champion track and field athlete known for her doping offenses. She won five medals at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia but has since agreed to forfeit all medals and prizes dating back to September 2000 after admitting to the fact that she had taken performance-enhancing drugs.

In October 2007, Jones had admitted that she had taken steroids before the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics and acknowledged that she had, in fact, lied when she previously denied steroid use in press statements, to various sports agencies, and—most significantly—to two grand juries. One, which was impaneled to investigate the BALCO “designer steroid” ring, and the other was impaneled to investigate a check fraud ring involving many of the same parties from the BALCO case. As a result of these admissions, Jones had accepted a two-year suspension from track and field competition, and announced her retirement from track and field on October 5, 2007.

The United States Anti-Doping Agency stated that the sanction also required disqualification of all her competitive results obtained after September 1, 2000, and forfeiting of all medals, results, points and prizes. On October 5, 2007, Jones formally accepted the charges levied against her and pled guilty to lying to federal agents in the BALCO steroid investigation in the U.S. District Court. On January 11, 2008, Jones was sentenced to serve 6 months in jail. She began serving her sentence from March 7, 2008 and was released on September 5, 2008.

Asafa Powell set a new 100 m world record in a low-key obscure meeting, in the absence of any major competition and may be counted as one of the least exciting world records ever. This had happened in the qualifying heats of a one day meet in Reiti, Italy. Powell now has three clockings of 9.77 seconds and this clocking of 9.74sec gives him the chance of being titled “ the fastest man on earth.” But Powell faces a major problem, that he never has a world or Olympic title to his credit gives his critics a chance to shout louder and louder. There is a missing piece in his ‘jigsaw puzzle’ and that is a gold medal. His critics include greats such as Carl Lewis and Michael Johnson. Powell’s main problem is that he seems to get tied up when a runner comes along side and his wall of confidence caves in.

David Beckham had left Real Madrid to join Major League Soccer side LA Galaxy as per a five-year deal reportedly worth 128 million pounds. The star had conceded that after considering several options to continue in Real Madrid or join any other European or British terms, he decided to join LA Galaxy. The deal is said to consist of his salary, existing sponsorship contracts, merchandising shirt sales and a share of the club’s profits. Beckham said that he was looking forward to grow the world’s most popular game in a country that is as passionate about its sport like England. LA Galaxy General Manager Alexai Lalas believes that among others, the interesting things that Beckham could bring about is the attention he would bring to the sport and to American soccer. Real Madrid confirmed Beckham’s departure stating that both the parties have decided not to extend their contract beyond 30 June,2007. Beckham is the biggest name to sign up for Major League Soccer since its inception in 1996. Sports and entertainment giants AEG, who also hold a stake in Beckham’s soccer academy in Los Angeles, own LA Galaxy. AEG President Timothy J. Leiweke believes that David is the truly the only individual who can build the ‘bridge’ between soccer in America and the rest of the world.

The 2007 Formula One espionage controversy, also called as “Spygate” or “Stepneygate” involved allegations that the McLaren Formula One team was passed confidential technical information from the Ferrari team, which was again passed on to the Renault F1 team. The original allegations involved allegations made by the Ferrari Formula One team against a former employee Nigel Stepney, a senior McLaren engineer, Mike Coughlan, and his wife Trudy Coughlan regarding the theft of technical information. The second FIA(Federation Internationale de l’Automobile) hearing into the matter took place on 13 September 2007, and resulted in several penalties for McLaren which included the team’s exclusion from the 2007 Constructors’ Championship and a record-breaking fine of $100 million (USD). In the week beginning 17 June 2007, at the 2007 US Grand Prix, Ferrari filed a formal complaint against Stepney, leading to the beginning of a criminal investigation by the Modena district attorney in Italy. On 3 July 2007,Ferrari completed its internal investigation and had dismissed Stepney as a result. On the day Ferrari had announced Stepney’s dismissal, it also announced it had taken action against “an engineer from the Vodafone McLaren-Mercedes team”,who was later named as Mike Coughlan and was later suspended by McLaren as a result. Coughlan is alleged to be in possession of 780 pages of Ferrari documentation and his wife is alleged to have taken them to a photocopying shop near Woking. Ferrari were caught unawares that their technical information had been stolen until they received a tip from an employee working in the photocopying shop. The staff member saw that the documents were confidential and which belonged to Ferrari and, after copying them, decided to contact the team’s headquarters in Italy.

However, on 10 July 2007, Ferrari reached an agreement with Mr. and Mrs. Coughlan under which Ferrari dropped its High Court case in return for their full disclosure of all they know about the case and a promise of future cooperation. An announcement made by McLaren based on its own internal investigation had revealed that no Ferrari materials or data were ever been in the possession of any McLaren employee other than Coughlan. Any other member of the team did not know the fact that he held at his home-classified materials from Ferrari.

The Fourth World Military Games were opened by the Indian President, Pratibha Devisingh Patil in Hyderabad, on October 14th,2007. About 6000 athletes from 106 countries took part in the sporting extravaganza, which boasted a total of 1076 medals in different games and sports. The 13 disciplines included Pentathlon, Shooting, Parachuting, Athletics, Triathlon, Swimming, Sailing, Boxing, Wrestling, Judo, Football, Handball and Volleyball. Hockey and Kabbadi were canceled due to lack of participation. This is the first time these games are taking place outside of Europe. The games are considered to be the second biggest sporting event after the Olympics.

Bravo, the dancing bison is chosen to be the mascot for the games. True to its dramatic style, Bravo descended from the skies along with a team of skydivers and landed before a dais on which a few military officials and state ministers were present.

The Conseil International du Sport Militaire, or CISM founded in 1948, is best described as the military equivalent of the International Olympic Committee or IOC. The CISM World Military Games debuted in Rome in 1995 and are held every four years, a year before the Olympics. They were hosted by Zagreb, Croatia in 1999 and by Catania, Italy in 2003. Brazil will host the next CISM World Military Games in 2011.