Jones Seeks to Qualify in 2nd Event : Track: After making the U.S. Olympic team in the 400-meter relay, Thousand Oaks High sprinter sets sights on the 200.

Marion Jones of Thousand Oaks High has already made the U.S. Olympic track and field team in the women’s 400-meter relay.

Now she wants to make the team in an individual event, the 200 meters.

Jones, who finished fifth in the 100 last Saturday, will run in a first-round heat of the 200 today in the U.S. Olympic trials in New Orleans. The quarterfinals and semifinals are scheduled for Saturday, with the final Sunday.

The top three finishers in each event qualify for the U.S. team that will compete in Barcelona from July 31-Aug. 9.

The top six in the men’s and women’s 100 and 400 qualify for their respective 400 and 1,600 relay teams.

“You’re going to have to run 22.50 (seconds in the 200) to make the team,” said Jones from New Orleans. “And I think I’m capable of running that fast.”

Jones, the national junior (age 19 and under) and high school record-holder in the girls’ 200 (22.67), placed fourth in that event in The Athletics Congress championships last year. She missed making the U.S. team that competed in the world championships in Tokyo by only .05 seconds with her time of 22.76.

Jones, who was honored as Gatorade’s national high school female track and field athlete of the year for the second time in a row Thursday, said that making the U.S. team in the 400 relay has not altered her attitude as she heads into the 200.

“There wasn’t any pressure to begin with, so I don’t feel any less now,” said Jones, 16. “It’s going to be just as tough to make the team in the 200 as it was in the 100.”

Although Jones’ time of 11.29 in the final of the 100 was shy of her personal best of 11.14, she was ecstatic about her performance, which made her the youngest athlete to qualify for the U.S. Olympic track team since Kennedy High’s Denean Howard (then 15) placed third in the 1980 trials in the 400.

“The first 50 I felt real good,” she said. “I was ahead of the pack, or at least right there with them, but I couldn’t hold it.”

That is not surprising, considering that the four women who finished ahead of Jones--Gwen Torrence, Gail Devers, Evelyn Ashford and Carlette Guidry-White--have run under 11 seconds. Torrence timed 10.97, Devers 11.02, Ashford 11.17, Guidry-White 11.18.

Jones was almost as happy for Ashford as she was for herself. Ashford, 35, is the 1984 Olympic gold medalist and former world record-holder. She made her fourth Olympic team.

“If anyone deserves it, she does,” Jones said. “If she hadn’t made it, I would have given up my space for her to run on the team. She’s the one I look up to more than anybody.”

Jones also is eligible to compete in the Olympics for Belize, her mother’s homeland. However, Jones said Saturday she no longer is considering that possibility.

“Everything was an option coming into this meet, but my main thing has been to make the U.S. Olympic team,” she said.

“I was confident I was going to make it so it never really crossed my mind about going somewhere else.”

Staff writer Randy Harvey contributed to this story.