Marion Jones

Marion Jones

Medal record
Women's athletics
Olympic Games
	2000 Sydney	100 m
	2000 Sydney	200 m
	2000 Sydney	4x400 m relay
	2000 Sydney	4x100 m relay
	2000 Sydney	Long jump
World Championships
	1997 Athens	100 m
	1999 Sevilla	100 m
	1999 Sevilla	Long jump
	2001 Edmonton	100 m
	2001 Edmonton	200 m

Marion Jones (born October 12, 1975 in Los Angeles, California) is an American athlete of Belizian descent. She is the winner of five medals at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. She holds dual citizenship from the USA and Belize (where her family is from) and she marks her victories with the flags of both nations.

Sports career

In high school, Jones won the California state championship in the 100 meters four years in a row, representing Rio Mesa and Thousand Oaks high schools. She was invited to participate in the 1992 Olympic trials, and, after her showing in the 200m finals, would have made the team as an alternate in the 4x100 relays, but she refused the invitation. After winning further statewide titles in sprinting, she accepted a full scholarship to the University of North Carolina in basketball, where she helped the team win the NCAA championship in her freshman year. When Jones lost a spot on the 1996 Olympic team because of an injury, she decided to concentrate on track and field.

She excelled at her first major international competition, becoming the 100 meter World Champion in Athens in 1997, while finishing 10th in the long jump. At the 1999 World Championships, Jones attempted to win four titles, but injured herself in the 200 m after a gold in the 100 m and a long jump bronze.

Then in Sydney, Jones told the press that she was aiming for five gold medals. As it was considered a possibility by fans and pundits alike, she was a media darling during the Olympics. However, she finished with three golds and two bronzes, still an astonishing feat which had never been achieved by a female athlete before.

In years to come, her victories were tainted by rumors that Jones was using performance-enhancing drugs at the time. Her ex-husband C.J. Hunter, an Olympic shot-putter and confessed steroid user, testified under oath that he had seen her inject drugs into her stomach in the Olympic Village in Sydney, and her coach Trevor Graham was involved in a major drug scandal that broke in 2005, which implicated baseball player Barry Bonds, sprinters Tim Montgomery (Jones' partner, and the father of her child), Chryste Gaines, Kelly White, and others, many of whom acknowledged using illegal drugs while competing. Jones has continually denied ever using performance-enhancing drugs, although her disappointing results in subsequent competitions have raised eyebrows.

A dominant force in women's sprinting, Jones was upset in the 100 meter dash at the 2001 World Championships, as Ukrainian Zhanna Pintusevich-Block beat her for her first loss in the event in six years. Jones, however, did claim the gold in both the 200 m and 4 x 100 m. Rumors continue to circulate about both Pintusevich and Jones, as well as numerous other athletes regarding their inability to match previous times once the drug scandal became public.

On her 2004 Olympics experience, Jones said "It's extremely disappointing, words can't put it into perspective." (Reuters) She came in fifth in the long jump and competed in the women's 4 x 100 m relay where they swept past the competition in the preliminaries only to miss a baton pass in the final race. Jones promised that her latest defeat would not be the end of her Olympic efforts.

As of May 2005, Jones has claimed that winning the gold medal at the 2008 Olympics remains her "ultimate goal".

May 2006 saw Jones run 11.06 at altitude but into a headwind in her season debut, and since then she's beaten Veronica Campbell and Lauryn Williams in subsequent 100m events.

On July 8, 2006 Jones won the 100 meter dash at Gaz de France with a 10.93. It was her fastest time in almost four years.

On July 11, 2006, Jones improved her time in the Rome Golden league with a 10.91, but was beaten to 2nd place by Jamaica's Sherone Simpson who clocked 10.87.

Allegations of using performance enhancing drugs

Jones has been dodging drug allegations since her days as a schoolgirl sports superstar. By 1992, when she was 16, she had established herself as the fastest high school girl in the United States. But two months before the Olympic trials, she was suspended and threatened with a four-year ban for failing to show up for an out-of-competition drug test.

For years, Jones was coached by controversial speed coach Trevor Graham, whose Sprint Capitol running organization in North Carolina has been racked by drug suspensions and who himself is being investigated by a federal grand jury. For a time, Jones also worked out with renegade Canadian coach Charlie Francis, who admitted providing drugs to Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson, who tested positive for steroids after setting a world record in the 100-meter race at the 1988 Games in Seoul. [1]

On December 3, 2004, Victor Conte, the founder of BALCO, appeared in an interview with Martin Bashir on ABC's 20/20. In the interview, Conte told a national audience that he had personally given Jones five different illegal performance enhancing drugs before, during and after the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. In the course of investigative research, reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada reported Jones had received banned drugs from BALCO, citing documentary evidence and testimony from Jones's ex-husband disgraced Olympian C.J. Hunter, who claims to have seen her inject herself with the steroids.

According to Hunter, Jones' use of banned drugs began well before Sydney. Initially, he told the investigators, Jones obtained EPO from Graham, who he said had a Mexican connection for the drug. Later, Hunter said, Graham met Conte, who began providing the coach with BALCO drugs that he distributed to Jones and other Sprint Capitol athletes. Still later, Hunter told federal investigators, Jones began receiving drugs directly from Conte.

Apparently, Jones stopped receiving services from BALCO when her trainer became upset with Conte. Jones has never failed a drug test using the then-existing testing procedures - and insufficient evidence was found to bring charges regarding other untested performance enhancing drugs.

June, 2006 EPO tests

At the USA Track and Field Championships in Indianapolis on June 23, 2006, an "A" sample of Marion Jones' urine tested positive for Erythropoietin (EPO), a banned performance-enhancer. This was reported by The Washington Post citing people with knowledge of the results who were not identified. Jones withdrew from the Weltklasse Golden League meet in Switzerland, citing "personal reasons." Jones denied using performance-enhancing drugs. She retained lawyer Howard Jacobs, who has represented many athletes in doping cases, including Tim Montgomery and disgraced cyclist Floyd Landis. On September 6, 2006 Jones' lawyers announced that her "B" sample had tested negative, which cleared her from the doping allegations.[2]

Achievements

Year	Tournament	Venue	Result	Event
1992	IAAF World Junior Championships	Seoul, Korea	5th	100 m
1992	IAAF World Junior Championships	Seoul, Korea	7th	200 m
1997	IAAF World Championships	Athens, Greece	1st	100 m
1997	IAAF World Championships	Athens, Greece	10th	Long jump
1998	IAAF World Cup	Johannesburg, South Africa	1st	100 m
1998	IAAF Golden League / Grand Prix	Moskva, Russia	1st	100 m
1998	IAAF World Cup	Johannesburg, South Africa	1st	200 m
1998	IAAF World Cup	Johannesburg, South Africa	2nd	Long jump
1998	IAAF Golden League / Grand Prix	Moskva, Russia	1st	Long jump
1999	IAAF World Championships	Sevilla, Spain	1st	100 m
1999	IAAF World Championships	Sevilla, Spain	3rd	Long jump
2000	IAAF Grand Prix	Doha, Qatar	1st	100 m
2000	2000 Summer Olympics	Sydney, Australia	1st	100 m
2000	2000 Summer Olympics	Sydney, Australia	1st	200 m
2000	2000 Summer Olympics	Sydney, Australia	3rd	Long jump
2001	IAAF World Championships	Edmonton, Alberta	2nd	100 m
2001	IAAF World Championships	Edmonton, Alberta	1st	200 m
2002	IAAF World Cup	Madrid, Spain	1st	100 m
2002	IAAF Grand Prix	Paris, France	1st	100 m

Personal life

Off the track, Marion Jones married shot putter C.J. Hunter, who was a coach on the University of North Carolina track team, in 1998. Hunter was required to resign his position at UNC because of school rules that prohibited coach-athlete dating. He was banned from the 2000 Olympics after having tested positive for nandrolone. They divorced a year later.

In 2003, Marion Jones gave birth to a son, Tim Jr., named after his father Tim Montgomery, who broke the 100 m World Record in 2002. Because of her pregnancy, Jones missed the 2003 World Championships, but spent a year preparing for the 2004 Olympics. Montgomery was banned from the sport after admitting to the use of performance enhancing drugs.

Involvement in alleged check-counterfeiting scheme

In July 2006, Marion Jones was linked to an alleged check-counterfeiting scheme that led to criminal charges against her coach and ex-boyfriend Tim Montgomery. Documents showed that a $25,000 check made out to Jones was deposited in her bank account as part of the alleged multimillion-dollar scheme.

Prosecutors allege that funds were sent to Jones’ track coach, Steven Riddick, in Virginia, then funneled back to New York through a network of “friends, relatives and associates.” Riddick was arrested in February on money-laundering charges. According to the indictment and subsequent documents filed with the court, the link to Jones was made through one of Riddick’s business partners, Nathaniel Alexander.

External links

• Marion Jones' U.S. Olympic Team bio ... with notes, quotes and photos
• Marion Jones at World Athletics
• Marion Jones on Belizeans.com
• Biography from the USATF
• Enormous picture gallery