Tulsa: After years of being at the centre of the action, disgraced sprint queen Marion Jones began her professional basketball career as more of a cheerleader than the star turn on Saturday.
It was a surprisingly quiet and unspectacular return to the sporting arena for Jones, who spent most of her debut anchored to the Tulsa Shock bench during a season-opening 80-74 loss to the Minnesota Lynx.
Hailed as the world's greatest female athlete before her stunning fall from grace, Jones finished with no points, rebounds or assists and one foul in just over three minutes of play.
"It's difficult," Jones admitted to reporters. "I'm a competitor, I want to see the team win and I want to see myself contribute to a win but I understand it is a process.
Expectations
"I know people kind of expect great things, they think I will be out there 40 minutes but you've got to understand it's a process."
Having helped North Carolina capture an NCAA championship as a freshman point guard in 1994, Jones returned to the court as the WNBA's oldest rookie, a 34-year-old mother of three looking for a fresh start.
Stripped of her Olympic medals and sentenced to six-months in prison for lying to federal investigators about her use of performance-enhancing drugs, Jones' tainted past did not bother a curious crowd who offered her a warm welcome.
The season-opener was listed as a sell-out of 7,806, the $125 (Dh458.8) courtside seats filled with Tulsa's movers and shakers including Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry and WNBA Commissioner Donna Orender.
Interest
"Everywhere you go people have an interest in Marion," said Orender. "They want to know what brought her here. They want to know if she can succeed.
"She is committed to excellence; she excelled on the global stage and wants to make a difference."
Jones' debut attracted a television crew from France and a reporter from Italian sports daily Gazzetta dello Sport but it was greeted with muted enthusiasm by American media with only USA Today and the Washington Post dispatching reporters to Tulsa.
Once on the covers of Vogue and Sports Illustrated, every competition she took part in was a must-cover media event.
But fewer than 25 news organisations covered her return to the court, media seats that at one time might have been occupied by Time and Newsweek now filled with writers for websites like Swish Appeal and Hoopfeed.
