Jones Slowly Restoring Luster to Her Career

A vague suspense adorned the women’s 100 meters Friday evening at the London Grand Prix -- during introductions.

As the public-address announcer called out names and accomplishments for the sprinters from Lane 1 toward Lane 8, with Marion Jones in Lane 6, the packed crowd of 17,500 applauded variously, adding oomph for the fastest runner of 2006, Sherone Simpson of Jamaica in Lane 5.

After Simpson came Jones, in her first London appearance in four years, and her first since her number of past associations with those fingered for doping rose to two coaches, two significant others and two nutritionists.

At the announcement of “Marion Jones,” a name not even invited to the event in recent years, Jones beamed her famous smile and waved with both hands as the crowd ...

The crowd mimicked recent crowds in Rome and Paris, cheering enough to match the Simpson roar. The middle of the stadium could hear only a single boo, inaudible from the starting line.

“The reception was more than I expected,” Jones said. “I believe that was because people know the truth.”

After Jones, 30, ran second to Simpson, 21, in a repeat outcome from two weeks ago in Rome, in 11.05 seconds to Simpson’s 11.00 against a headwind, there came a continuation of the adulation and a Jones vow for the Beijing Olympics in 2008: “One gold medal for me is not going to suffice.”

As she walked back past the main grandstand, she waved and beamed and answered as people called out her name. Then, she stopped along a 50-foot stretch of stands and made her way along haltingly, signing maybe 100 autographs, posing for pictures with fans and ripping her starting number “6” off her shorts to give a requesting kid.

It hardly looked like somebody impugned from all directions in recent years, from the accusations from BALCO nutritionist Victor Conte that he crafted Jones a performance-enhancement calendar, to the two-year drug suspensions of two fellow-athlete former companions, to the questions about her brief work with Ben Johnson’s former coach, to a New York Times report from last week.

That report stated that a nutritionist who worked with Jones’ then-coach in the late 1990s had testified to a BALCO grand jury that at the behest of the coach, he supplied EPO and human growth hormone, procured from pharmacies in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, to athletes including Jones and Tim Montgomery (currently serving a two-year doping suspension), and that he had helped Jones with her preparation for the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

Several London media outlets reprinted that report, and Owen Slot asked Friday in the Times of London, “Do you see Marion Jones these days as faded royalty or right royal farce?” He suggested that all three Sydney gold medals “long ago lost their shine.”

Still, other newspapers focused almost entirely on Asafa Powell of Jamaica, who won the men’s 100 meters in 9.91, and the Londoners yearning for Jones’ signature extended their arms and pens and papers toward her from three-deep in the stands.

“I just felt an incredible amount of support,” Jones said, later adding, “Every country that I’ve traveled to this year” since ending an 11-month layoff in May, “I’ve gotten an incredible reception.”

Said Simpson: “She’s a very strong woman to come back after all she has been through.”

“People are still pointing fingers and saying things,” Jones said, calling such people “naysayers” and adding, “I can’t control that. I’m not going to let them run my life or ruin my life.”

Defiantly anticipating an Olympics where she’ll be 32, after scant presence at the Athens 2004 Games (fifth in the long jump), Jones proclaimed 2006 as “a chance to get my rhythm back.”

She rated London “an OK race.”

She has run the third-, fourth- and fifth-fastest times in the 100 this year, at 10.91, 10.92 and 10.94. Her 10.91 in Paris on July 8 marked her fastest in four years.

She had run 10.91 seconds or faster five times in 1997, 10.80 or faster nine times in 1998, 10.83 or faster five times in 1999 and 10.91 or better eight times in 2000, including 10.75 at Sydney.

“I had two years out of the game,” she said. “I’ve had a rough patch for a few years. I had a baby in ’03.”

By 2008, she said, “I won’t be satisfied in Beijing with one gold.”

Recalling her own bold five-gold Sydney forecasts, which came 60% true, she smiled widely and said, “I’m not even going to begin to predict and talk myself into that headache again.”

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Powell extended his unbeaten streak to 18 races by winning the 100 meters in 9.91, but he fell short of Justin Gatlin’s stadium record of 9.89 and the world record of 9.77 that both men share.

Tyson Gay won the men’s 200 in 19.84, upsetting Xavier “X-Man” Carter.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.