NEW YORK — Sounding a defiant note as she faced more questions about her reported links to a burgeoning drug controversy, Marion Jones vowed to seek legal remedies if the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency acts to prevent her from competing in the Athens Olympics.
Jones testified last year before a grand jury investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, which has been accused of supplying steroids to athletes in baseball, football and track and field.
Two Bay Area newspapers reported that BALCO founder Victor Conte told federal investigators he gave steroids to Jones and her live-in partner, Tim Montgomery, the 100-meter world-record holder. Conte has denied those reports, as have Jones and Montgomery.
Jones, appearing at the U.S. Olympic team media summit Sunday, again said she has not taken banned substances. She has never tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. However, the USADA can begin proceedings against an athlete based on a "non-analytical positive," information gleaned from something other than a drug test, such as an admission of drug use.
USADA is a quasi-independent agency that manages the testing and adjudication process for U.S. Olympic, Paralympic and Pan Am athletes.
"If I make the Olympic team, which I plan to do in Sacramento, and I'm held from the Olympic Games because of something that somebody thought, you can pretty much bet that there will be a lawsuit. I don't have a problem saying that at all," she said.
"I'm not going to sit down and let someone, or a group of people or an organization take away my livelihood because of a hunch, because of a thought, because somebody is trying to show their power."
Jones, who rose at 4:30 a.m. to travel to New York from her home in Raleigh, N.C., said she had not been contacted by USADA. The U.S. Senate voted May 6 to give USADA information the Senate Commerce Committee had received as part of the criminal probe into BALCO. No athletes are named in the documents.
USADA spokesman Rich Wanninger said he couldn't comment on Jones' remarks or a timetable for USADA's next step. Said Darryl Seibel, a spokesman for the U.S. Olympic Committee: "As of today I'm not aware of any non-analytical cases that have been brought."
The Olympic trials will be held July 9-18 in Sacramento. Entries for the Athens Games must be received by Olympic officials by July 21.
