Jones schedules return to track with today’s 400 at Mount SAC

WALNUT, Calif. – Marion Jones, disappointing in last year’s Olympics after winning five track and field medals in 2000, is set to open her season today by running the women’s 400 meters at the Mount San Antonio College Relays.

Jones, who won three gold medals and two bronzes in Sydney, will be competing for the first time since the Athens Games, where she failed to win a medal.

Although she never tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs and repeatedly insisted she never used any, Jones came under the cloud of the steroid scandal in her sport.

She filed a $25 million defamation lawsuit against Victor Conte, contending the head of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative tarnished her reputation when he claimed that she used drugs before and after the 2000 Olympics.

Conte is one of four men who have pleaded not guilty to charges that they participated in a steroid-distribution ring.

After taking time off to give birth to a son in 2003, Jones failed to make the U.S. Olympic team last year in the 100 or 200.

She competed in the long jump and 400 relay in Athens. Although primarily a sprinter and long jumper, Jones sometimes runs in the 400 for training purposes.

Others scheduled to compete at Mount SAC include Olympic gold medalists Inger Miller in the women’s 100, Felix Sanchez in the men’s 400 and Allen Johnson in the men’s 110 high hurdles.