When the subject of relay team selection came up last month at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials, the coaches said they would do nothing to jeopardize any relay medals.
“We are going to use the best team that will bring the medals back home,” men’s coach George Williams said.
Yet women’s coach Sue Humphrey has decided to use Marion Jones on the 4×100-meter relay, even though Jones is under investigation by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.
As matters now stand, Jones, who finished fifth in the 100 at the trials, will run the second leg of a relay expected to remain the same for all three rounds: Angela Williams, Jones, Lauryn Williams and LaTasha Colander.
“It’s fine with me,” said Lauryn Williams, who finished third in the 100 at the trials. “The coaches will make the best decision.”
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Humphrey said Monday she had repeatedly asked her superiors at USA Track and Field if there were any reason to keep Jones off the relay.
“This was a debate and questions I came out of the Olympic trials with,” Humphrey said. “No one has given me any objective information that would make her ineligible. The only thing I know is just innuendo I have read in the papers.”
Humphrey has almost no choice but to include Jones.
Torri Edwards, runner-up to Colander in the trials, faces a ban from the Olympics if the Court of Arbitration for Sport denies her appeal of a positive stimulant test. That decision is expected Tuesday.
If Edwards is banned, Gail Devers will take her spot in the 100 meters. Devers already has asked not to be considered for the relay.
And Allyson Felix has decided to concentrate on the 200.
“She said she could be available if we need her at the last minute,” Humphrey said.
The risk of including Jones on the relay stems from a recent decision to take away medals based on evidence of doping that did not come to light until three years after the race in question.
The international track federation council recommended last month that all six members of the 2000 Olympic champion U.S. men’s 4×400-meter relay lose their medals because one, Jerome Young, was improperly allowed to compete after a positive doping test in 1999. The International Olympic Committee last week postponed action on that recommendation until the end of a 60-day appeals period.
Jones never has tested positive and has not been charged by the USADA, but she has been linked to the doping scandal centered on the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative.
According to published reports, Jones’ ex-husband, C.J. Hunter, told federal investigators she had used banned substances before, during and after the 2000 Olympics, when she won three gold and two bronze medals.