LAUSANNE, Switzerland - Seven years later, the fate of Marion Jones' five medals from the Sydney Olympics is at stake this week in what could lead to a reshuffling of results for more than three dozen athletes.
Marion Jones of the US shows the gold medal she won in the women's 200m final at the Olympic Games in Sydney in this September 28, 2000, file photo. The International Olympic Committee is expected to strip disgraced US sprinter Marion Jones of her medals this week and bar her from future Games. [Agencies] |
The International Olympic Committee must decide whether doping-tainted Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou should be upgraded to gold in the women's 100 meters and whether Jones' American teammates should be stripped of their relay medals.
The IOC has some tricky legal, ethical and moral issues to consider.
"It's important that we make the right decision," IOC executive board member Gerhard Heiberg said. "If we are in any way in doubt, we should postpone it a bit."
The issue of how to revise the medals following Jones' confession that she used performance-enhancing drugs tops the agenda for the three-day IOC executive board meeting starting Monday.
The IOC will also review preparations for next year's Beijing Olympics, adopt guidelines for blogging by athletes during the games, assess plans for the first Youth Olympics, and discuss the issue of betting in sports.
Reallocating the medals from the 2000 Sydney Games is expected to come up Wednesday, when a three-member disciplinary commission makes its recommendations to the board, including the possibility of leaving the 100-meter gold medal spot vacant.
Jones won gold medals in the 100, 200 and 1,600-meter relay, and bronze medals in the long jump and 400-meter relay. After years of denying drug use, she acknowledged in court in October that she started doping before the Sydney Olympics. She has returned her medals.
Last month, the International Association of Athletics Federations erased all of Jones' results dating to September 2000 and recommended that her relay teammates also be disqualified and lose their medals.
IOC president Jacques Rogge said that medal upgrades would not be "automatic," and that only athletes deemed to be "clean" would be bumped up.
Normally when an Olympic medalist is disqualified, the standings are adjusted so that the next-place finisher moves up and those below also go up a spot. However, there is reluctance among some IOC officials to upgrade Thanou from silver to gold in the 100 because she was involved in a high-profile scandal at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
Thanou and fellow Greek runner Kostas Kenteris failed to show up for drug tests on the eve of the games and claimed they were injured in a motorcycle accident. They were forced to pull out of the Olympics and were later banned for two years.
Without evidence that Thanou was guilty of any doping violation in Sydney, the IOC would need other reasons for not awarding her the gold. Some IOC officials have suggested leaving the 100-meter gold vacant.
"In a way, it's logical and consistent that we should just move her up, but there is another feeling," IOC executive board member Denis Oswald told The Associated Press last month at a world anti-doping summit. "We'll see how insistent she is. The best way would be not to do anything and just leave it as it is and there is no gold.
"The rules say you move up," said Oswald, a Swiss lawyer who sits on the three-man panel investigating the Jones case. "Legally it's pretty clear. But it's more an ethical issue."
Heiberg, a board member from Norway, believes the matter should be postponed until more is known about Thanou.
"I don't know whether we are ready to make a decision," he told the AP. "If we do give her the gold medal, we should be 100 percent sure."
The bronze medalist in the 100 in Sydney was Tanya Lawrence, with fellow Jamaican Merlene Ottey fourth.
In the 200, Pauline Davis-Thompson of the Bahamas took the silver behind Jones and now stands to move up to gold. Sri Lanka's Susanthika Jayasinghe was third and Jamaica's Beverly McDonald fourth.
The IOC is likely to seek disqualification of the other eight American women, including those in the preliminaries who won medals in the relays.
Jamaica took silver behind the United States in the 1,600 relay, with Russia third and Nigeria fourth. In the 400 relay, France was fourth behind the Americans.
U.S. Olympic Committee chairman Peter Ueberroth has said the American relay athletes should voluntarily return their medals.
Lawyers, however, can point to a ruling in the case of American runner Jerome Young, who was stripped of his gold medal in the 1,600-meter relay from Sydney because of a previous doping violation. He ran onlythe preliminary.
The IAAF and IOC sought unsuccessfully to strip the entire American team, including Michael Johnson. The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled in 2005 that there were no rules in place at the time of the Sydney Games calling for a whole relay team to be disqualified for an offense by one member.
