Even though she's handed back her Olympic medals, the shaming of Marion Jones isn't over yet. The officials are prepared to wipe her name officially from the record books.
LONDON: Even though she's handed back her Olympic medals, the shaming of Marion Jones isn't over yet.
International Olympic and track and field officials are prepared to wipe her name officially from the record books, strip her of her world championship medals, pursue her for prize money and appearance fees and possibly ban her from future Olympics in any capacity.
Meantime, Jones' relay teammates also stand to lose their medals, while disgraced Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou seems likely to be promoted to the 100-metre gold medal from the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Jones gave back the five medals she won at the Sydney Games on Monday following her admission that she was a drug cheat, and also agreed to forfeit all results, medals and prizes dating back to September 1, 2000.
The US Olympic Committee now will return the medals to the International Olympic Committee, which will decide what to do with them. Jones won golds in the 100 metres, 200 metres and the 1,600 relay in Sydney, as well as bronzes in the 400 relay and long jump.
The IOC and International Association of Athletics Federations said yesterday they will move forward with their procedures for disqualifying Jones and revising the resultsfrom the Olympics and world championships.
The IAAF has authority over results at the Olympics, while the IOC controls the medals.
The IOC, which opened an investigation into Jones after she was linked to the BALCO steroids scandal in 2004, can act now that she has confessed and surrendered the medals.
After long denying she ever had used performance-enhancing drugs, Jones admitted Friday that she'd taken the designer steroid "the clear" from September 2000 to July 2001.
"We now need to have the official process of disqualification and may be other measures like non-eligibility for future games and so on," IOC Vice President Thomas Bach, a German lawyer who heads the IOC's three-man disciplinary commission on the case, told.
The panel will make recommendations to the ruling IOC executive board, which next meets in December in Lausanne, Switzerland. IOC president Jacques Rogge could speed up the process by ordering a decision by postal vote before then.
The IOC and IAAF are in the awkward position of seeing Thanou inherit Jones' 100-metre gold medal from Sydney. Thanou finished second in the race.
Thanou was at the centre of a major doping scandal at the 2004 Athens Olympics. She and fellow Greek runner Kostas Kenteris failed to show up for drug tests on the eve of the Games, claimed they were injured in a motorcycle accident and eventually pulled out. Both later were suspended for two years.
Under standard procedures, the medal standings are adjusted so the silver medalist moves up to gold if the winner is disqualified for doping or other reasons. All of the other finishers would also move up a spot.
"I will not speculate on the outcome, but the general rule is the second-place finisher moves up," Bach said.
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