"I feel good. I'm back, and doing my thing."

Jones Is the Latest to Fail a Drug Test
The Olympic sprinter has not been accused of a violation pending the
results of a `B sample.'
By Alan Abrahamson, Times Staff Writer
August 19, 2006


Five-time Olympic medalist Marion Jones failed a drug test at the U.S.
track and field national championships in Indianapolis in June, testing
positive for a banned endurance booster, a source familiar with the
results said Friday.

Jones, 30, among the most famous woman athletes in the world, has not
been accused of a doping violation. The irregularities emerged in
initial testing, on the so-called "A sample," said the source, who
requested anonymity. Tests on the second part of the sample, the "B
sample," are not complete. Only if the B sample also comes back
positive for erythropoietin, or EPO, would authorities consider a case
against Jones.

ADVERTISEMENTDogged for years by doping allegations, Jones has
consistently maintained her innocence. She could not be reached Friday
for comment. Nor could her longtime lawyer, Richard M. Nichols, or her
agent, Charlie Wells.

Jones is the third star U.S. athlete this summer to confront
doping-related allegations.

Floyd Landis, winner of the Tour de France, registered an "unusual"
testosterone ratio in a sample provided July 20 after his stirring
breakaway Stage 17 win in the Alps. Officials have also said Landis'
sample showed evidence of synthetic testosterone. He denied wrongdoing.

Two days after Landis' initial test results were made public, it was
announced that another U.S. track and field standout, sprinter Justin
Gatlin, tested positive in April for testosterone. Gatlin won the
100-meter dash at the Athens 2004 Olympics and at last year's track and
field world championships; in May, he tied Jamaican Asafa Powell's
world record in the 100, 9.77 seconds. Gatlin also has denied
misconduct.

Asked Friday about Jones, U.S. track and field officials declined to
comment. So too did U.S. Olympic Committee officials.

A doping violation naming Jones, if one were to be filed, would be
prosecuted by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. Agency officials declined to
comment.

Jones' record includes a 1992 suspension handed down by USA Track &
Field for failing to show up for a random drug test. At the time, she
was still a student at Thousand Oaks High School. Famed lawyer Johnnie
Cochran Jr. handled her case on appeal, arguing that neither she nor
her coach had received notification of the test, and he won.

Jones holds 12 of the fastest 20 100-meter times in history. Her best,
10.65 seconds in South Africa in 1998, stands fourth on the all-time
list; Florence Griffith-Joyner holds the top three times, including a
world-record 10.49, set in Indianapolis in 1988.

At the Sydney Olympics in 2000, Jones won five medals, three gold -
in the 1,600-meter relay, the 200 and the 100 in 10.75 seconds. She
also won bronze in the 400-meter relay and in the long jump.

Since her star turn in Sydney, however, Jones' career had slowed
considerably. She failed to qualify for the individual sprints at the
2004 Games in Athens, making the U.S. team only in the long jump, in
which she finished fifth. Jones was also named to the U.S. 400-meter
relay team at the Games, but the U.S. women did not finish, doomed by a
botched handoff.

Jones' struggles came as she repeatedly fended off allegations
connected to the federal investigation of BALCO, the Bay Area
Laboratory Cooperative in Burlingame, Calif. BALCO, advertised as a
nutritional supplements firm, distributed steroids and other banned
substances to elite athletes, according to authorities.

In 2003, Internal Revenue Service special agent Jeff Novitzky, in a
report recounting an interview with BALCO founder Victor Conte,
asserted that Conte gave Jones illicit steroids nicknamed "the cream"
and "the clear" in exchange for her endorsement of a zinc-based Conte
nutritional supplement.

In a December 2004 appearance on ABC's "20/20," Conte said he had not
only supplied Jones with banned substances but had watched her inject
herself with human growth hormone. She sued for defamation, alleging
$25 million in damages. The case was settled in February; terms were
not disclosed.

Last year, officials at some of Europe's leading meets made it clear
she was not welcome on the lucrative circuit, citing concerns tied to
the BALCO investigation.

Suspicions have also swirled around Jones because of the men in her
life.

Jones was formerly married to champion shotputter C.J. Hunter. He
tested positive four times in the summer of 2000, before the Sydney
Games, for the banned steroid nandrolone, Olympic officials said. He
said he had never knowingly ingested it. Later, he and Jones split.

In 2003, Jones gave birth to a son. The father, sprinter Tim
Montgomery, had set what was then a world record 9.78 seconds in the
100 in 2002. Last December, he was stripped of that record and issued a
two-year suspension because of doping.

Jones used to be trained by Raleigh, N.C.-based coach Trevor Graham,
who earlier this month was banned from USOC workout facilities because
of his links to more than half a dozen athletes sanctioned or
implicated in doping offenses, including Montgomery and Gatlin.

It was Graham who sent a syringe containing a then-unknown designer
steroid to the anti-doping agency in 2003, sparking the BALCO scandal.
The New York Times reported that he is currently a focus of a federal
inquiry. He has consistently denied misconduct.

This summer, her body looking like sculpted marble, Jones started
winning again - showing a remarkable leap from her last year's best
in the 100, a comparatively pedestrian 11.28.

In Paris on July 8, Jones ran a winning 10.92 and, at a meet three days
later in Lausanne, Switzerland, won in 10.94.

In Rome on July 14, Jones ran her best 100 in four years, 10.91. In
that race, she finished just behind Jamaica's Sherone Simpson, first in
10.87 seconds.

Three weeks before, on June 23 at the U.S. nationals in Indianapolis,
running in the stadium where nine years before she won her first
national title, Jones won the 100 in 11.10.

Afterward, she told the crowd through the public address system, "I
feel good. I'm back, and doing my thing."

Jones was scheduled to run Friday at a meet in Zurich, Switzerland.
Meet director Hansjorg Wirz told the Associated Press that Jones
"received a phone call from the United States this morning and left for
personal reasons."

in message .com,
') wrote:

Five-time Olympic medalist Marion Jones failed a drug test at the U.S.
track and field national championships in Indianapolis in June, testing
positive for a banned endurance booster, a source familiar with the
results said Friday.

Jones, 30, among the most famous woman athletes in the world, has not
been accused of a doping violation. The irregularities emerged in
initial testing, on the so-called "A sample," said the source, who
requested anonymity. Tests on the second part of the sample, the "B
sample," are not complete. Only if the B sample also comes back
positive for erythropoietin, or EPO, would authorities consider a case
against Jones.

Of course, only French labs leak.

--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; this is not a .sig

a écrit :
(well, it wasn't his writing, was it !? so I except ....)
Asked Friday about Jones, U.S. track and field officials declined to
comment. So too did U.S. Olympic Committee officials.

A doping violation naming Jones, if one were to be filed, would be
prosecuted by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. Agency officials declined to
comment.

I have to admire these sturdy law enforcement agents - after having
(must be true, no ?) eradicated all traces of narcotics and other hard
drugs throughout all corners of the USA, they can now find the needed
time to stamp out a plague on society, sports cheating.

I also should congratulate the USA administration on having acquired the
extra time to devote to this mess. It must be nice to know that all
overseas soldiers have been returned home, since all world conflicts
have been solved, and all peoples can now concentrate on the last real
danger remaining to be conquered.

Peace in the world - who'd have imagined it ! And so quickly ! Just
yesterday, there were wars raging all over. Terrorists at every travel
agency and air pilot school. And this morning, I wake up and read here
of the miracle. Just call me Rip van Sandy for my inattention. Off to
coffee, then to the newspapers - I have to keep copies for my grandchild
to read when he is old enough. He'll just never believe his good luck.

--

Sandy
Verneuil-sur-Seine FR
-
"Our knowledge is a little island in a great ocean of non-knowledge."
- Edward O. Wilson

I have to admire these sturdy law enforcement agents - after having (must
be true, no ?) eradicated all traces of narcotics and other hard drugs
throughout all corners of the USA, they can now find the needed time to
stamp out a plague on society, sports cheating.

By that logic, I suppose LE should ignore shoplifting since they have
murders to solve.

JessicaG a écrit :
I have to admire these sturdy law enforcement agents - after having (must
be true, no ?) eradicated all traces of narcotics and other hard drugs
throughout all corners of the USA, they can now find the needed time to
stamp out a plague on society, sports cheating.


By that logic, I suppose LE should ignore shoplifting since they have
murders to solve.



sure

Sandy wrote:

I have to admire these sturdy law enforcement agents - after having
(must be true, no ?) eradicated all traces of narcotics and other hard
drugs throughout all corners of the USA, they can now find the needed
time to stamp out a plague on society, sports cheating.

One of the ugliest and saddest aspects of the charade is the linkage
between the War on Drugs and the War on Sports.

Subject heading: The War on People

(sorry for the constant harping) --D-y

wrote:
Sandy wrote:

I have to admire these sturdy law enforcement agents - after having
(must be true, no ?) eradicated all traces of narcotics and other hard
drugs throughout all corners of the USA, they can now find the needed
time to stamp out a plague on society, sports cheating.

One of the ugliest and saddest aspects of the charade is the linkage
between the War on Drugs and the War on Sports.

Subject heading: The War on People

(sorry for the constant harping) --D-y



A nice little video showing how the true evil empire has engendered love
not only for the world but it's own people.

ABC news video from MIAMI, Aug. 10, 2006
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Slaw1tYDPFc