Jones Passes on Opportunity to Run in Olympics : Track: Thousand Oaks High sprinter gives only vague reason for declining chance to compete in Barcelona this summer.

Marion Jones of Thousand Oaks High unexpectedly said Tuesday that she has declined an opportunity to compete in the Olympic Games in Barcelona this summer, although she probably would have been named to the women’s 400-meter relay team.

Jones, 16, said that she made the decision with her mother, Marion Toler, after finishing fourth in the 200 meters in the U.S. Olympic trials in New Orleans on Sunday.

Jones, who lowered her own national junior (age 19 and under) and high school record in the 200 to 22.58 seconds, offered only a vague reason for passing up an opportunity to compete in Barcelona, saying that “the time wasn’t right.”

However, she did say that if she had placed among the top three finishers in either the 100 or the 200 at the trials, she would have run in Spain. Jones, who just completed her junior year at Thousand Oaks, finished fifth in the 100.

The top three finishers in each event in the trials automatically qualify for the U.S. team. The fourth-place finisher in the men’s and women’s 100 and 400 earn the fourth spot on the respective 400- and 1,600-meter relay teams.

In most instances, the fifth- and sixth-place finishers in the 100 and 400 qualify as relay team alternates and usually run in the qualifying rounds of the Games to rest the sprinters who have competed in individual events.

In the case of the women’s 400-meter relay, however, eight athletes were selected to form a relay pool. The members of that pool will be evaluated at a training camp in Narbonne, France, in July and in a pair of meets in Europe before the six Olympic team members are chosen.

Barbara Jacket, the U.S. Olympic women’s coach, said Toler informed her Monday morning that Jones would not take part in the camp.

“She said that if (Marion) had finished in the top four (in the 100), she might have gone,” Jacket said.

Jones said she plans to compete in the 100 and 200 in The Athletics Congress Junior championships at Ohio State on Saturday and Sunday. She is the defending champion in both events.

If Jones finishes among the top two in the junior meet, she will qualify for the U.S. team that will compete in the World Junior championships in September in Seoul. She also could compete Aug. 8 in the Canada-USA junior meet in Kamloops, British Columbia.

Jones’ decision not to run in the Olympics came as a surprise to Art Green, the Thousand Oaks girls’ track coach, although he said there had been talk about it for several days.

“She’s got other things to do,” Green said. “This was not a rash decision on their part. They had talked about it for some time.”

Elliott Mason, Jones’ personal coach, could not be reached for comment.

Jones’ fourth-place finish in the 200 in the trials marked the second year in a row that she narrowly missed making the U.S. team in that event.

At last year’s TAC meet in New York, Jones ran a then national junior and high school record of 22.76 to finish fourth, .04 seconds behind Esther Jones of Louisiana State. Esther Jones secured the third and final qualifying spot on the U.S. team that competed in the World championships in Tokyo.

In Sunday’s 200 final, Marion Jones finished .07 seconds behind third-place Michelle Finn of the Mazda track club. Mazda teammate Gwen Torrence won in 22.03, the fastest time in the world this year.

“I’m happy with the way I ran,” Jones said Tuesday. “My straightaway was real good. I picked it up well coming off the curve.”