Jones Defiant About Olympics

NEW YORK — Sounding a defiant note as she faced more questions about her reported links to a burgeoning drug controversy, Marion Jones vowed to seek legal remedies if the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency acts to prevent her from competing in the Athens Olympics.

Jones testified last year before a grand jury investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, which has been accused of supplying steroids to athletes in baseball, football and track and field.

Two Bay Area newspapers reported that BALCO founder Victor Conte told federal investigators he gave steroids to Jones and her live-in partner, Tim Montgomery, the 100-meter world-record holder. Conte has denied those reports, as have Jones and Montgomery.

Jones, appearing at the U.S. Olympic team media summit Sunday, again said she has not taken banned substances. She has never tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. However, the USADA can begin proceedings against an athlete based on a “non-analytical positive,” information gleaned from something other than a drug test, such as an admission of drug use.

USADA is a quasi-independent agency that manages the testing and adjudication process for U.S. Olympic, Paralympic and Pan Am athletes.

“If I make the Olympic team, which I plan to do in Sacramento, and I’m held from the Olympic Games because of something that somebody thought, you can pretty much bet that there will be a lawsuit. I don’t have a problem saying that at all,” she said.

“I’m not going to sit down and let someone, or a group of people or an organization take away my livelihood because of a hunch, because of a thought, because somebody is trying to show their power.”

Jones, who rose at 4:30 a.m. to travel to New York from her home in Raleigh, N.C., said she had not been contacted by USADA. The U.S. Senate voted May 6 to give USADA information the Senate Commerce Committee had received as part of the criminal probe into BALCO. No athletes are named in the documents.

USADA spokesman Rich Wanninger said he couldn’t comment on Jones’ remarks or a timetable for USADA’s next step. Said Darryl Seibel, a spokesman for the U.S. Olympic Committee: “As of today I’m not aware of any non-analytical cases that have been brought.”

The Olympic trials will be held July 9-18 in Sacramento. Entries for the Athens Games must be received by Olympic officials by July 21.

Jones, who will run the 100 and compete in the long jump at the Home Depot Invitational in Carson on Saturday, said she supports USADA’s efforts to find and punish cheaters but believes relying on a non-analytical positive is “not the correct approach.”

She added: “I think what USADA is trying to do, is they’re saying athletes are guilty and they have yet to do any form of investigation. I think this is unfair.”

Montgomery was to accompany her to New York but she said he felt ill and stayed home with the couple’s 10-month-old son. His illness wasn’t serious, she said.

Herman Frazier, a two-time Olympian who will be the U.S. chef de mission in Athens, said he “kind of felt for” Jones on Sunday.

“This is a time in her life, she just had a child, she’s one of the greatest athletes in the world, but there’s certain things surrounding her that’s got to be tough on her,” he said.

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The U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame, revived after a 12-year hiatus, will induct swimmers Janet Evans and Matt Biondi, speedskaters Bonnie Blair and Dan Jansen, track stars Florence Griffith-Joyner and Jackie Joyner-Kersee, and the 1996 women’s soccer team on July 1 in Chicago. Also to be honored are Paralympian Randy Snow, Alice Coachman Davis -- who became the first African American female athlete to win a gold medal when she won the high jump in 1948 -- and filmmaker Bud Greenspan as a special contributor.

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Dawn Staley, who will play on her third U.S. Olympic basketball squad at Athens, said the team’s performance will be crucial to the fate of the WNBA. The league got a huge boost from the 1996 Games but has since had attendance problems. “We know if we don’t do well in Athens it will certainly be a spiral downward,” said Staley, who coaches Temple’s women’s team. “We need to come back with gold or a lot of careers and dreams will go down the drain.”