Marion Jones’s legal team has gone on a public relations offensive, poking holes in the evidence United States doping officials are using to investigate the star sprinter and possibly ban her from the Olympics.
Jones’s lawyers showed documents received from the US Anti-Doping Agency (Usada) to the Associated Press on Tuesday and explained why they believe there is no compelling evidence that Jones used steroids.
The documents, seized in a raid of the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (Balco) last year, contain negative urine tests purportedly from Jones; a ledger of those test results; a calendar with the initials MJ that investigators implied was a schedule for steroid use during 2001; and a cheque written from Jones’s bank account to Balco founder Victor Conte.
Conte was one of four men indicted earlier this year for involvement in an alleged steroid-distribution ring. Many top athletes, including Jones and baseball slugger Barry Bonds, have been linked to Conte and Balco, and testified before a federal grand jury last year.
A Senate committee obtained evidence from the grand jury and gave it to Usada in hopes of guaranteeing a drug-free US Olympic team in Athens in August.
Jones’s lawyers deny the documents were about Jones, who won five medals at the 2000 Olympics, and that any evidence falls far short of the ”beyond a reasonable doubt” standard Usada says it will use to ban athletes from the Olympics without a positive drug test.
”They are using statements, documents, rumor and innuendo that can not be corroborated,” said Jones’s attorney, Rich Nichols. ”To accuse and ban an icon of the Olympics in track and field, a Marion Jones, who has never tested positive in her career, it’s unbelievable.”
Usada director of legal affairs Travis Tygart would only say that Jones’s team was given documents at Monday’s meeting.
It was not clear if this was all of the evidence Usada has against Jones. But her lawyers said it matched what they saw in November and have no reason to believe that prosecutors or Usada was holding anything back.
The most incriminating evidence, if proven accurate, is the calendar that runs from March to August 2001 and has references to many track and field events during that season. It alleges to show a schedule of drug use with a note saying ”start clear” on March 29.
Last summer, the ”clear” was determined to be the substance tetrahydrogestrinone, or THG — which was at the centre of the Balco investigation.
Many of the dates have the letters C, E, G and I. The letter C appears to refer to THG, and The New York Times cited a government affidavit saying E could be the masking agent epitestosterone, G could be human growth hormone, and I could be insulinlike growth factor.
There were also references to Trevor, CJ and Victor, which appear to be her former coach, Trevor Graham, her then-husband CJ Hunter and Conte.
But Jones’s lawyers poked holes at the calendar evidence, saying that the MJ could stand for anyone; the fonts for March and April were different now than in November; and that there were three pages for July, including two that had times that appeared to be from men in the 100m. The times were 9,84, 9,86 and 9,97 seconds, which are all more than a half-second better than the women’s record of 10,49 seconds.
The drug tests, which were also obtained from a file with Jones’s name on it at Balco’s offices in Burlingame, have no names on them and only identity numbers, which are different for each one. Jones’s lawyers said she never gave a urine sample at Balco and provided plane tickets to show she was out of the country on two of the three dates.
All of the samples, which were tested by Quest Diagnostics, were negative for steroids. There were no collection sites or IDs of the collector on the test. There were also two tests on June 6 2001, with vastly different results in levels of testosterone and epitestosterone.
There was also a blood test from March 28 2001, with Jones’s name on it from American Medical Laboratories in Chantilly, Virginia, where Jones’s lawyers say she has never been. That result was faxed to a number in North Carolina where Jones’s lawyers say Hunter lived. Jones split up with Hunter earlier that year and no longer lived at that address, her lawyers said.
Hunter was also linked to the cheque from M Jones and Associates, written to Conte for $7 350 on September 7 2000. The New York Times has reported that the cheque was written by Hunter and the signature appeared to be from him.
The information from the documents was first reported by The New York Times and the San Jose Mercury News. — Sapa-AP