The tragedy is that Jones herself now will never know.
At 31, she announced her retirement from athletics after admitting she had used illegal drugs on Friday.
Her admission taints Jones' greatest triumph - a five-medal performance at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
It also made a mockery of her vehement denials of doping over the past four years, as a woman once held up as the epitome of strength and grace tried to distance herself from disgraced associates and from evidence collected in the Balco steroid distribution scandal that linked her to doping.
Long before she became the most successful female athlete at a single Games by winning three gold and two bronze medals at Sydney, she was already recognised as an extraordinary sports talent.
At nine years old, she was a national sprint champion. At 16, her results earned her a spot as an alternate on the US 4x100m relay squad for the Barcelona Olympics.
She declined that berth, saying she preferred her first Olympic gold to come not as a mere extra in the heats but in a true finals victory.
Multi-talented, she was a standout basketball player at the University of North Carolina. There, she studied communications and journalism, disciplines that helped provide the basis of her facility in dealing with the press.
A broken foot in 1995 prevented her from competing in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and, in the wake of that setback, she decided to focus on athletics and forego a possible basketball career.
She is the only daughter of George and Marion, who separated soon after the athlete was born.
In 1983, Jones' mother married Ira Toler, who adopted Marion. Marion was very close to her stepfather and was devastated when he died from a stroke.
Unfortunately for Jones, all the other men she grew close to later in her life did not have a positive influence.
It was at the University of North Carolina that she met American shot putter, C.J Hunter, who was a coach there.
Hunter was ordered to resign because of school rules that prohibited coach-athlete dating.
The pair married in 1998.
Hunter introduced her to Trevor Graham, a track coach whom she began working with in April 1997.
Hunter was later banned from the 2000 Olympics after having tested positive for nandrolone. They divorced in 2002.
And Graham is still under investigation for his role in the Balco drug investigation. He also used to coach Justin Gaitlin, who is banned for doping.
By the time Jones was being built up as the face of the Sydney Games, she owned three world titles, winning the 100m and 4x100m in 1997 and the 100m in 1999.
In 2003, she and the new man in her life, 100m world record-holder Tim Montgomery, became the 'fastest couple on the planet.' The pair had a son in 2003, Tim Jr, and separated two years later.
Montgomery is awaiting sentencing for money laundering. He was also found guilty of doping.
On February 24, 2007, she married Barbadian sprinter Obadele Thompson in a small, quiet ceremony in the rural North Carolina town of Wilson's Mills.
During a brief comeback last year, Jones spoke of tackling the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
That is a dream now dead and buried.
AFP, AP, Reuters