Jones Pulls Out of Prefontaine Meet

After adding two disappointing performances in Europe to a string of lackluster results, Marion Jones withdrew from the Prefontaine Classic track meet Saturday in Eugene, Ore.

Jones, who was to run the 100-meter dash against a field led by Athens gold medalist Yulia Nestorenko of Belarus and silver medalist Lauryn Williams of the U.S., did not explain her decision, meet director Tom Jordan said Thursday.

Jones’ partner, 100-meter world-record holder Tim Montgomery, will run as scheduled Saturday, Charles Wells, the couple’s agent, said via e-mail late Thursday.

Montgomery is also scheduled to appear at a Court of Arbitration for Sport hearing in San Francisco on Monday regarding doping allegations made against him by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. Jones has not been charged with a doping violation but is under investigation by USADA. Neither athlete has failed a doping test.

“I’m anticipating that Tim will run, but I’m not releasing the men’s 100 until [today] because there are always so many scratches,” Jordan said.

At the FBK Games last Sunday in Hengelo, Netherlands, Jones was timed in 11.29 seconds in finishing second to Chandra Sturrup of the Bahamas. On Wednesday in Milan, she again was runner-up to Sturrup, after a false start, in 11.67.

Jones ran the 100 in 11.62 as a 14-year-old freshman at Oxnard Rio Mesa High in 1990 and set a personal best of 10.65 in 1998.

In other races this season, she won the 100 at Forte-de-France, Martinique, in 11.28, and finished last in the 400 at the Mt. San Antonio College Relays in Walnut in 55.03, well off the 54.21 she recorded there when she was 14.

Also on Thursday, organizers of the July 5 Athletissima meet in Switzerland said they wouldn’t invite Jones because of her poor form.

Meet director Jacky Delapierre told the Reuters news agency she might be welcomed if she would run in a B-level race and “if she calls up and says she wants to race for practice and without any appearance money.”

Jones won three gold medals and two bronze medals at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 but was shut out at Athens last summer. Once able to command appearance fees of up to $150,000, she reportedly was paid less than $25,000 to run a relay leg at the Kansas Relays in April and about $36,700 in Milan. She has been shunned by many European meet directors who contend she’d overshadow the competition and rekindle talk of the doping allegations.

Jones’ ex-husband, C.J. Hunter, and Victor Conte -- the central figure in the BALCO steroids scandal -- have said they saw her inject herself with banned substances before the Sydney Games. She has denied that and filed a defamation suit against Conte.