Jones urged to return medals

ATHLETICS: The head of the United States Olympic Committee has urged disgraced athlete Marion Jones to hand back her Olympic medals.

Jones pleaded guilty on Friday to lying to federal investigators about her use of steroids.

"As further recognition of her complicity in this matter, Ms Jones should immediately step forward and return the Olympic medals she won while competing in violation of the rules," USOC chairman of the board Peter Ueberroth said.

Jones won five medals at the 2000 Sydney Games - three of them gold, including the prestigious 100 metres.

"As a result of the choices she made, Ms Jones has cheated her sport, her team mates, her competitors, her country and herself," added Ueberroth. "She now has an opportunity to make a very different choice by returning her Olympic medals and in so doing properly acknowledge the efforts of the vast majority of athletes who choose to compete clean."

International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge said he hoped Jones's admission will help shed further light on the scandal surrounding the San Francisco-area laboratory BALCO in the U.S.

"This is a sad day for sport. The only good that can be drawn from today's revelations is that her decision to finally admit the truth will play, we hope, a key part in breaking the back of the BALCO affair," said Rogge.

"The IOC has since 2004 wanted to ascertain the extent to which the case has had an impact on the Olympic Games.

"Our disciplinary commission, which has been working on this file over the past years, will now glean what it can from her comments, and work with the IAAF and the USOC on how to finally get to the bottom of this sorry case," added Rogge.

The IAAF, or International Association of Athletics Federations, is the sport's governing body.

In a telephone interview from outside the White Plains courthouse, Travis Tygart, CEO of the U.S Anti-Doping Agency, praised the efforts of the BALCO investigators.

"Those who value clean sport greatly appreciate the U.S. attorney and BALCO investigators for their commitment to expose the truth," he told Reuters.

Tygart said he could not comment on any potential USADA case against Jones, but added, "any time an investigation leads to an admission of doping we will fulfil our obligation to clean athletes." The attorney for Jones's former coach Trevor Graham would not comment on Jones's statement.

"We will address these allegations in the courtroom during the trial of our case," Joseph Zeszotarski of Raleigh, North Carolina, told Reuters in an e-mail.

Graham was indicted last year on three counts of lying to federal agents. He pleaded not guilty to the charges and his trial is scheduled for Nov. 26 in San Francisco.

BALCO founder Victor Conte, the man at the centre of the scandal that has rocked U.S sport, said Jones was by no means the only one to blame for her fate.

"Those who have made the majority of the money from Olympic as well as professional sport must also take responsibility for the drug culture that exists," Conte told Reuters. "The ineptness of the anti-doping procedures in place has greatly contributed to the 'use or lose' mentality that exists.

"In a sense, Marion Jones is a victim of a corrupt system that has existed for decade," he added.

- Reuters