Twenty years after leaving Belize, decorated former track and field athlete Marion Jones has made her landmark return to her home country to headline the first-ever National Sports Summit, held this Wednesday and Thursday at the Belize City Civic Centre, where she is set to deliver the event’s opening keynote address. Ahead of the summit, Jones opened up in an interview with *Open Your Eyes*, revealing that even while living abroad, she has closely followed developments in Belize’s sports ecosystem – and that she intended this return to be more than a ceremonial visit.
Jones also addressed the long-standing controversy that defined her professional athletic career: her admission of using performance-enhancing drugs ahead of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, a scandal that resulted in her being stripped of all five Olympic medals she earned at the Games. Acknowledging her past poor choices, Jones expressed regret for the disappointment her actions brought to her family and the Belizean community that once celebrated her historic achievements. Now, she says she is committed to leveraging that hard-won experience to give back to her home country and clear a path for emerging young Belizean athletes.
“Talent is right here in Belize – what we are missing is a structured, long-term pathway to turn that potential into world-class success,” Jones said during her interview. “Right now, there is no cohesive national strategy that covers consistent funding, standardized coaching certification, or the resources coaches need to build elite competitors from the ground up.” She called for key national bodies including the National Sports Council, Belizean Olympic Association, and Commonwealth Games Association to collaborate on building a cross-administration strategy that outlasts changes in government leadership.
Jones pointed to neighboring smaller Caribbean nations including Jamaica, The Bahamas, and Barbados as proof that small countries can consistently produce elite, world-ranked athletes, arguing that structured grassroots development is the key to their success. She emphasized that athletic development must start in early childhood, with mandatory physical literacy and fundamental movement skills integrated into school curricula across Belize. Too often, she noted, local programs only begin nurturing athletes when they reach their early teens – a timeline she calls far too late to build a foundation for elite success.
Beyond early childhood education, Jones stressed that coach development is another critical pillar of reform: the country needs to expand access to official certification programs and provide working coaches with the specialized tools required to develop elite talent. She also noted that sustainable change cannot rely on government funding alone, calling on Belize’s private sector and large overseas diaspora community to contribute to the effort – not just through financial donations and improved training facilities, but also through mentorship, connections to international university athletic programs, and opportunities for young Belizean athletes to train abroad.
Jones was clear that transformative change will take time, urging stakeholders to prioritize building a sustainable foundation for long-term success rather than chasing the immediate goal of producing an Olympic gold medalist. Most importantly, she said, she wants the National Sports Summit to mark the start of lasting change to Belize’s sports system, not just a one-off conversation that fades from public attention. “I don’t want this to be just a brief news story that everyone forgets a week after I leave,” she said. “This has to be the start of something that grows for our young people.”