200 metres, Women

America’s Marion Jones had already won the 100 metres. She was hoping to add this gold medal in her quest to win five golds at the Sydney Olympics – 100, 200, long jump, and both relays. She had won the 100/200 at the US Olympic Trials and was the top sprinter in the world. She did “win” the 200 as well, quite easily, and would later add a third gold medal in the 4x400. She succeeded in winning five medals, adding a bronze in the long jump, and surprisingly only a bronze in the 4x100 when the United States was upset by the Bahamas and Jamaica. In the 200 the surprise third-place finisher was Sri Lanka’s Susanthika Jayasinghe who won that nation’s first medal under that name, their only other Olympic medal won in 1948 by 400 hurdler Duncan White, when the nation was called Ceylon.

But the results of this event and every 2000 event in which Marion Jones competed are not what they seem. Dogged by rumors of drug use, Jones had chosen some unusual bedfellows for husbands. In 2000 she was married to shot putter C. J. Hunter and during the Sydney Olympics it was revealed that he tested positive for steroids several times earlier in the year. They later divorced, and she then married sprinter Tim Montgomery. In 2003 he was found to have participated with the BALCO Scandal and was banned for two years by the IAAF. In 2006 Jones almost tested positive for the only time in her career, with a sample showing use of eryrthropoietin (EPO) after the US Championships. But her B sample was negative and it was not considered a positive drug test. Shortly thereafter Montgomery was charged in a check-kiting scheme and Jones was implicated as well, and they later divorced. She then married Barbadian sprinter Obadele Thompson, who had, at least, no drug charges against him. In October 2007, Jones admitted to federal prosecutors that she had lied to them and had used steroids in the months prior to the Sydney Olympics. Her 2000 results were stricken by the IAAF and the medals were returned to the IOC.