Marion Jones' relay team loses 2000 medals
BEIJING (AP) - April 10, 2008 The International Olympic Committee executive board disqualified
and stripped the medals from the athletes who won gold with Jones
in the 1,600-meter relay and bronze in the 400-meter relay.
Her teammates on the 1,600 squad were Jearl-Miles Clark, Monique
Hennagan, LaTasha Colander-Richardson and Andrea Anderson. The
400-relay squad also had Chryste Gaines, Torri Edwards, Nanceen
Perry and Passion Richardson.
IOC legal adviser Francois Carrard, who assisted the
disciplinary panel investigating the case, said the U.S. Olympic
Committee has been ordered to return the medals.
The decision follows the admission by Jones last year that she
was doping at the time of the Sydney Games.
She returned her five medals last year and the IOC formally
stripped her of the results in December. Jones won gold in the 100
meters, 200 and 1,600 relay, and bronze in the long jump and 400
relay.
Jones teammates had previously refused to give up their medals,
saying it would be wrong to punish them for her violations. They
have hired a U.S. lawyer to defend their case, which could wind up
in the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
"The decision was based on the fact that they were part of a
team, that Marion Jones was disqualified from the Sydney Games due
to her own admission that she was doping during those games," IOC
spokeswoman Giselle Davies said. "She was part of a team and she
competed with them in the finals."
The IOC had put off any decision on reallocating the medals,
pending more information from the ongoing BALCO steroid
investigation in the United States.
A reshuffling of the medals could affect the medal results of
more than three dozen other athletes. The IOC wants to know whether
any other Sydney athletes are implicated in the BALCO files.
The next IOC board meeting takes place in Athens in June,
followed by another meeting in Beijing on the eve of the Aug. 8-24
Olympics.
"The decision ... illustrates just how far-reaching the
consequences of doping can be," USOC chief executive officer Jim
Scherr said in a statement. "When an athlete makes the choice to
cheat, others end up paying the price, including teammates,
competitors and fans.
"We respect the decision of the IOC executive board, as well as
the right for the athletes who are impacted by this decision to
file an appeal with the Court of Arbitration of Sport, should they
so choose."
Davies said there was no timetable for a decision on
redistributing medals, but noted there was an eight-year statute of
limitations. The Sydney Games finished on Oct. 1, 2000.
Davies said the Jones' relay case differed from that of U.S.
400-meter runner Jerome Young, who was stripped of his gold medal
in the 1,600-meter relay from Sydney because of a doping violation
dating back to 1999. He ran only in the preliminary of the relay.
The IOC had sought to strip the entire American men's team but
the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled in 2005 that there were no
rules in place at the time of the Sydney Games for a whole relay
team to be disqualified for an offense by one member.
"Marion Jones ran in the finals and she was of her own
admission doped during the Olympic Games," Davies said. "Jerome
Young was found to be doped before the Olympic Games and should
never have competed in the first place."
In December, IOC president Jacques Rogge said the committee had
initiated the process for removing the U.S. relay medals, but would
give the runners a hearing. He said the athletes would be
represented by the U.S. Olympic Committee, even though the American
body has already said the relays were tainted and the medals should
be returned.
Jamaica took silver behind the U.S. in the 1,600 relay and will
move up to gold if the standings are adjusted. Russia was third and
Nigeria fourth. In the 400 relay, France was fourth behind the
Americans.
After long denying she ever had used performance-enhancing
drugs, Jones admitted in federal court in October that she used the
designer steroid "the clear" from September 2000 to July 2001.
She began serving a six-month prison sentence last month for lying
to investigators about doping and her role in a check fraud scam.
There is strong reluctance among IOC officials to award Jones'
100-meter gold to Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou, who was at the
center of a major scandal four years later in Athens. She and
fellow Greek sprinter Kostas Kenteris failed to show for pre-games
drug checks and were hospitalized after claiming they were injured
in a motorcycle crash on the way to the tests.
Thanou and Kenteris missed the games and were later banned for
two years.
One option under consideration by IOC officials is leaving the
gold medal spot vacant.
The IOC board also adopted anti-doping rules for the Beijing
Games, covering the period from the opening of the Olympic village
on July 27 to the closing ceremony on Aug. 24.
Among new provisions, athletes will be considered guilty of a
doping violation if they are found in possession of any prohibited
substance, including marijuana. Missing two doping tests during the
games or one during that period and two in the previous 18 months
will constitute a violation. And athletes can be subjected to
no-advance notice drug tests "at any time or place" during the
games.