Fall of Jones a 'vivid morality play'

ATHLETICS:The world governing body for athletics IAAF hopes the six-month prison sentence handed down to disgraced Olympic sprinter Marion Jones yesterday will deter others from taking dugs.

"There is a lot of sadness for Marion and her family," IAAF spokesman Nick Davies said after Jones was sentenced for lying about her steroid use and her knowledge of a separate cheque-fraud case.

"Six months in prison is a lot," Davies said. "But you do hope that it will be a deterrent to others. Hopefully when she is out of prison she can help the IAAF and other organisations to ensure other people don't follow the path that she . . . followed. It (her doping) has certainly hurt the image of the sport."

Jones, the first woman to win five athletics medals, three of them gold, at a single Olympics, has been stripped of her 2000 Sydney Games medals. All her results since September 2000 were wiped from the record books after her tearful admission in October to steroid use after years of denial.

USA Track & Field (USATF), the sport's US governing body, also hoped Jones's downfall would serve as a lesson.

"The revelation that one of the sport's biggest stars took performance-enhancing drugs and repeatedly lied about it, in addition to being a party to fraud, has no silver lining," USATF president Bill Roe said in a statement. "It is a vivid morality play that graphically illustrates the wages of cheating in any facet of life."

A mother of two and once the hottest athletics ticket in town, the 32-year-old disgraced former Olympic champion has now been handed the final chapter in an astonishing fall from grace that began in Athens in the summer of 1997 when she stormed to victory in the 100m at the World Championships and peaked with the winning of five medals at the Sydney Games of 2000.

The length of her sentence was as forecast after lawyers had met with Judge Kenneth Karas before Christmas - though it had been rumoured the judge might make the term longer, as he was also dealing with her admission she knew of the involvement of her former partner Tim Montgomery, the father of her older son Monty jr, in a scheme to cash millions of dollars' worth of stolen or forged cheques. The former world 100-metre record holder Montgomery, and several others, have been convicted in that scam.

Once a millionaire, she will go behind bars not only a broken woman emotionally - she is still nursing her infant son - but also financially as her fortune disappeared in her legal battle.

An outstanding basketball player, Jones hit the big time in 1997 with her first world 100-metre title, which she retained in Seville two years later.

In the 2000 Olympics she ended up with gold in the 100 metres, 200 metres and 4x400 metres and bronze in the long jump and 4x100 metres. But it was also in Sydney that eyebrows were first raised when she defended her husband, the US shot-putter CJ Hunter, who had failed a drugs test.

When the Balco steroids scandal erupted in California in 2003, Jones was heavily linked with the company. She denied it, but was later to admit she used steroids between September 2000 and July 2001.

She later started a relationship with Montgomery, who was later banned for links with drugs though he had never failed a test. She married the Barbadian sprinter Obadele Thompson last February and their first child, a son, was born in July.

Yesterday her world collapsed.

Marion Jones: The facts

1997:Wins 100m at the World Championships in Athens, finishes 10th in the long jump.

1998: October: Marries shot-putter CJ Hunter and the pair begin training with Trevor Graham. Hunter later tests positive for steroids.

1999:Wins gold in the 100m and bronze in the long jump at the World Championships.

2000:Becomes the first female athlete to win five medals at a single Olympic Games - gold in the 100m, 200m and 4x400m and bronze in the long jump and 100m relay in Sydney.

2002: Divorces Hunter before starting a relationship with the sprinter Tim Montgomery.

2003: Misses the World Championships because of pregnancy.

2004: Montgomery is charged with receiving and using banned substances as part of the Balco doping scandal. He loses a subsequent appeal. May: Jones, now under suspicion herself, threatens to sue US Anti-Doping Agency if she is banned from the Athens Olympics. She is cleared to compete but does not place for a medal. December: Balco founder Victor Conte says he witnessed Jones using banned substances.

2005: Montgomery retires after two-year ban.

2006: August - Jones's A sample tests positive for banned EPO hormone at US Championships. September: Her B sample comes back negative and she is permitted to compete again.

2007: October 5th - Confesses to lying about her drug use under questioning. The IOC proceed to strip her of her Olympic medals and her IAAF record is wiped retrospectively to September 1st, 2000. October 8th: Returns her Olympic medals.

2008, January 11th: Sentenced by a US court to six months in prison.