MARION JONES' MEDALS OFFICIALLY SNATCHED

IOC lowers the final hammer on track star following steroid admission.




Marion Jones was officially stripped of her five Olympic medals Wednesday by The International Olympic Committee following her admission that she lied about using performance enhancing drugs.

The IOC also banned the former track star from attending next year's Beijing Olympics in any capacity and said it could bar her from all future games. Last month, the International Association of Athletics Federations erased all of Jones' results dating to September 2000, but it was up to the IOC to formally disqualify her and erase her Olympic medals.

Jones won gold medals in the 100 meters, 200 meters and 1,600-meter relay in Sydney, and bronze in the long jump and 100-meter relay. She was the first female track and field athlete to win five medals at a single Olympics.


In addition to the Olympic medals, the IOC also disqualified Jones from her 7th-place finish in the long jump at the 2004 Athens Olympics. As previously reported, Jones had already handed back the three gold medals and two bronze she won at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.


The IOC postponed a decision on redistributing her medals, including whether to strip her American relay teammates and whether to upgrade doping-tainted Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou to gold in the 100. The reshuffling of Jones' medals could affect the medal status of more than three dozen other athletes.

MARION JONES RETURNS HER OLYMPIC MEDALS

Disgraced track star Marion Jones has returned the five medals she won at the 2000 Olympics, just days after the International Olympic Committee said it would move quickly to strip her of the medals after she pleaded guilty Friday to using steroids.

Her lawyer, Henry DePippo, said Monday that Jones had turned in the three gold and two bronze medals won at the Sydney games, but declined to say where they are now.
"She apologizes to her competitors and hopes the record books will be amended to accurately reflect their achievements," a source, who did not wish to be identified, told Reuters.

Meanwhile, track-and-field's governing body has expressed "disappointed" in Jones' admitted use of performance-enhancing drugs.

"If she had trusted to her own natural gifts and allied them to self sacrifice and hard work I sincerely believe that she could have been an honest champion at the Sydney Games," said Lamine Diack, president of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), in a statement. "Now, instead, Marion Jones will be remembered as one of the biggest frauds in sporting history."

In addition to her Olympic medals, Jones also won a gold (100 meters) and bronze (long jump) at the 1999 worlds in Seville, Spain, and two gold (200 and 4x100) and a silver (100) at the 2001 world championships in Edmonton, Alberta.