The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has formally stripped U.S. athlete Marion Jones of her five Olympic medals from the Sydney games and wiped her name from its record books after she admitted taking performance-enhancing drugs.
At its Executive Committee Meeting in Lausanne, the IOC also banned Jones from attending next year's Beijing Olympics in any capacity and reserved the right to bar her from all future Games.
Jones had previously handed back her medals, three golds and two bronzes, from the 2000 Games. Jones won gold in the 100 meters, the 200 meters and the 1,600 meters relay. She took bronze in the long jump and in the four-by-100 meter relay.
Last month, the International Association of Athletics Federations erased all of Jones' results dating to September 2000 and recommended that her eight American relay teammates also be disqualified and lose their medals.
Once considered the queen of athletics, Jones admitted in October that she had taken performance-enhancing drugs and had lied to U.S. government agents about it. The drug was one manufactured by a San Francisco area laboratory, BALCO, which supplied steroids to several top-level athletes.
The IOC did not automatically advance the runners who finished behind to higher medals. Greek sprinter Ekaterini Thanou, the silver medalist in the 100-meters in Sydney, has also been tainted by a drug charge. The IOC Executive Board said it would decide those matters pending the outcome of the BALCO case.
Some information for this report was provided by AP.
