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Marion Jones faces further action from IOC and IAAF
(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-10-10 09:50

 

LONDON - Even though she's handed back her Olympic medals, the shaming of Marion Jones isn't over yet.

Marion Jones (R) is embraced by her mother Marion after making a statement to the media in White Plains, New York, October 5, 2007. Triple Olympic champion Jones announced her retirement from athletics on Friday moments after pleading guilty to lying to federal investigators about her use of steroids.  [Agencies]

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-meter 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 meters, 200 meters 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 Tuesday they will move forward with their procedures for disqualifying Jones and revising the results from 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 maybe 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 Associated Press.

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-meter gold medal from Sydney. Thanou finished second in the race.

Thanou was at the center 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.

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