Victory for Jones' team-mates as they keep medals

Published on Friday 16 July 2010 18:09

Seven members of the US women's 2000 Olympic 4x100 and 4x400 metres relay teams can keep their medals from the Sydney Games, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) said yesterday.

The ruling overturned a 2008 International Olympic Committee (IOC) executive committee decision to strip the athletes of their medals after relay team member Marion Jones admitted she had used a banned substance during the Games.

Seven members of the relay teams appealed and CAS said the IOC decision had been reversed based on IOC and International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) rules applicable at the time. The US 4x100 team won bronze and the 4x400 team gold at the Games with Jones running on both relays. She has been stripped of all five medals she won in Sydney.

The IOC said it was disappointed with yesterday's decision. "The result of the athletes' appeal is disappointing and especially unfortunate for the athletes of the other teams who competed according to the rules," the IOC said in a statement.

It noted clearer and more stringent rules had been adopted by the IAAF in 2003 in order to ensure that similar scenarios would be prevented in the future.

The decision means Jearl Miles-Clark, Monique Hennagan, LaTasha Colander Clark and Andrea Anderson, who participated in various rounds of the 4x400 with Jones, will retain their gold medals.

Chryste Gaines, Torri Edwards, Nanceen Perry and Passion Richardson won the 4x100 metres bronze with Jones.

All but Perry participated in the appeal. "The (CAS) panel found that at the time of the Sydney Olympic Games there was no express IOC or IAAF rule in force that clearly allowed the IOC to annul the relay team results if one team member was found to have committed a doping offence," CAS said in a news release.

"The panel acknowledges that the outcome of this case may be unfair to the other relay teams that competed with no doped athletes helping their performance; however, such outcome exclusively depends on the rules enacted or not enacted by the IOC and by the IAAF at the time."

Meanwhile, Usain Bolt continued his domination of global sprinting last night when he won the 100metres at the Diamond League meeting in Paris.

Asafa Powell, Bolt's Jamaican team-mate, was quicker out of the blocks but the triple Olympic champion got into his stride to come through and win in a meet record of 9.84seconds in only his second race back following injury.

Powell was second, 0.07secs adrift, with fellow Jamaican Yohan Blake third in a personal best of 9.95.

Bolt said: "I didn't feel as powerful as I wanted to out of the blocks. I need to go home and work on that."

Powell added: "I'll get him next time around.It was just a bad race tonight but it will get better."

Phillips Idowu was fourth in a triple jump competition won by Cuban David Giralt, the British world champion producing a best effort of 17.20, while a strong British team won the men's 4x100m relay.