THE athletics world was thrown into turmoil last night after top American sprinter Marion Jones was found to be the latest high-profile star to have failed a drugs test.
The triple Olympic champion was reported to have tested positive for the presence of the blood-boosting drug erythropoietin (EPO) in a urine sample.
Athletics officials were awaiting the results of a B sample, with Jones facing a two-year ban from athletics if she is found guilty of doping.
She is the third high-profile US athlete to fail a doping test this year. Olympic 100m champion Justin Gatlin tested positive for testosterone at a relay meeting in April, and cyclist Floyd Landis failed a test for testosterone at the Tour de France.
Jones, who won five Olympic medals at the games in Sydney 2000, insisted she was clean and her lawyer said the 30-year-old athlete would do whatever it took to clear her name.
But results of her failed A sample test sent shockwaves through the athletics community. Jones is seen as a role model for thousands of young female athletes.
Liz McColgan, the Scottish retired long-distance Olympic medallist, called for harsher punishment of drug cheats.
She said: “I firmly believe that anyone who has anything to do with drugs to enhance their performance should be banned for life from the sport. Until we start taking drastic steps, people are always going to chance it.
“At the moment they can get back into the sport too quickly. A two-year ban means they can be back in time for the next championships so the risk becomes worth it for them.”
Allan Campbell, manager of the Central Scotland Institute of Sport, said: “We are trying to impress upon young athletes as early as possible that drugs are completely unacceptable.
“They must take responsibility for what they put into their body and they have to be very careful. Unfortunately, when high-profile athletes are found to have taken drugs then it sends out the wrong message.”
Jones withdrew from a Golden League Weltklasse meeting in Zurich on Friday night and returned to her home in the United States for “personal reasons”. It is believed the urine sample that tested positive was taken at the June US Championships in Indianapolis.
Jones’ general counsel Rich Nichols said: “It is unfortunate that the integrity and the confidentiality of the testing process may have been breached, but Marion Jones has always been clear: she has never taken performance-enhancing substances, not now, not ever.”
Jones has been under investigation by the US Anti-Doping Agency in connection with the BALCO laboratory doping scandal, in which the controversial sports nutrition centre in California was accused of supplying steroids and other banned performance-enhancing drugs to elite US athletes.
But Jones has never previously failed a doping test and has denied taking performance-enhancing substances.
Her former husband, banned shot-putter CJ Hunter, is reported to have told investigators that he had injected Jones with banned substances and saw her inject herself.
Jones was also previously the partner of disgraced former 100m world record holder Tim Montgomery, who was banned from the sport for two years in December in connection with the BALCO scandal.
Following the birth of her son with Montgomery in 2003, Jones suffered two years of poor performances before making a triumphant return to form this year. She has recorded three of the five fastest times in the world this year.
Yesterday, Pierre Weiss, general secretary of the International Association of Athletics Federations, confirmed that the world governing body was awaiting results of a B test.
Weiss said: “For us, the situation is clear: an athlete is only positive once an A sample has tested positive and the contra-analysis of the B sample confirms this. This is not the situation at the moment.”
British athletics has also been mired in controversy over drug use in the sport in the last year. Sprinter Darren Campbell announced his retirement at a race meeting in Grangemouth last week after strongly criticising his 4×100m relay Olympic medal-winning teammate Dwain Chambers for using drugs.
Chambers was banned for two years in 2004 after being caught taking steroids. Campbell refused to take part in a lap of honour after winning gold in the 4×100m relay at the recent European Championships in protest at Chambers’ inclusion in the team after his drugs ban.(scotsman.com)
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