US sprinters to get ruling on 2000 Olympic medals stripped due to Marion Jones doping

Jones’s relay runners to learn fate of 2000 medals

LAUSANNE, Switzerland — Seven American runners will find out Friday if they have won back Olympic relay medals stripped from them because of doping by teammate Marion Jones.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport said Thursday it is ready to issue its ruling on the appeal against the athletes’ disqualification from the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

The International Olympic Committee nullified their results and took back the medals in 2007 after Jones admitted using performance-enhancing drugs.

In Sydney, Jones won gold in the 4×400 relay. The squad also included Jearl Miles-Clark, Monique Hennagan, LaTasha Colander Clark and Andrea Anderson.

Chryste Gaines, Torri Edwards, Nanceen Perry and Passion Richardson won bronze medals along with Jones in the 4×100 relay. All but Perry appealed to CAS.

The seven believe they should escape punishment for cheating by Jones, who was also stripped by the IOC of gold medals in the 100 and 200 meters and bronze in the long jump.

At a two-day hearing in May, lawyers for the relay runners said the sport’s rule book in 2000 prevented teams from being disqualified for one person’s doping.

The ruling could depend on legal precedent from a previous doping case involving U.S. relay runners at the Sydney Olympics.

A CAS ruling five years ago said teammates of Jerome Young should not lose their 4×400 gold medals after he was given a retroactive ban from 1999-2001 — meaning he was technically ineligible for the games.

However, Young did not run in the 4×400 final at Sydney, while Jones was part of both quartets that clinched the medals.