Weight of husband on Jones' shoulders

By PETER JESSUP

When Marion Jones takes to the track in search of her second gold in the 200m final tonight she'll be running with the full 144kg of husband C. J. Hunter on her shoulders.

She might take the gold, but she won't win. If she doesn't get gold, talk will be that her husband's drug case was the reason why. If she does win, talk will be that her husband does drugs so she must be guilty by association.

The revelation that Hunter tested positive to the steroid nandrolone four times this year, the last of those in Oslo a reading 1000 times the natural level, is about to cost Jones plenty.

As it was with Jennifer Lopez being told by record company executives to ditch boyfriend Puff Daddy after the New York nightclub shootout, so it will be with Jones.

The corporates that were queuing up to buy her face will be hanging back now, waiting to see the outcome, offering less, if any, money.

The big questions here now are, in order of importance: what did Marion know about it, when did she know, will C.J.'s problems affect her performance, and is Marion on drugs?

She knows that, because she said in her autobiography See How She Runs: "All I can do is to continue to be clean and to be around people who are clean. It's sad, though, isn't it. Everyone wants you to run fast but once you do, there's a suspicion. It's kind of a dead-end road either way."

Jones kept a very low profile on Wednesday, running her heat in the 200m mid-morning then doing her warm-down at the enclosed area behind the stadium before resting up for an afternoon semifinal and the long jump at night.

"I said all along I think today is going to be the most difficult day for me, so I tried to conserve a bit of energy in the first round and it felt good," Jones said, then left as quickly as she had the day before at Hunter's press conference.

She was there to give her full support to her husband, she said, then fled two minutes into it, leaving her husband to face the music.

She had the look of a woman betrayed and it was interesting that many of the photographs of the pair displayed today showed her looking one way, he the other, just as the pictures of Charles and Di did weeks before their break-up.

The IOC on Wednesday responded to Hunter's declaration - that he was clean, that it was a mistake, that the positive came about because of an iron supplement he was taking - with a blistering attack.

Jacques Rogge, vice-president of the IOC medical committee that is in charge of drug testing, said the finding was not an accident and "and in my opinion there is no doubt about it, this is not something you can have by accidentally taking the drug."

Rogge said more famous athletes were using nandrolone now because it had been modified from the old injected form, which was detectable for months, to a new oral form that was not detectable after two weeks.

Hunter's nutritionist, Victor Conte, said Hunter's concentrations of nandrolone were caused by iron supplements. This prompted a laugh from Australian IOC vice-president Dick Pound, who responded: "He must be pretty rusty."

The supplement was the same that caused positives to be returned by Merlene Ottey and Linford Christie, Hunter claimed. Which makes you wonder why he'd take them, knowing the other two were in trouble.

He asked people to look at his record, saying he had no reason to take drugs and he'd only improved 6 1/2 feet in 10 years. Trouble is, that is the difference from being no-one to being No 1 in the world. That is the reason to take drugs.

At the training track, athletes who were running against Jones were amazed by the daily workout she did pre-Games. She would circuit the 400m 25 times, in a routine that went jog-sprint-jog-sprint for a few laps. Then she went sprint-walk-sprint-walk. Then back to sprint-jog-sprint-jog. None of the sprints, 50 of them, was over 11.4s, the last around 11s.

"I couldn't believe it," a British runner said. "I know how hard I had to work to get where I am and I couldn't do that."

There is a lot of speculation that Hunter is one of many athletes warned off coming here because the IOC and Socog don't want another Ben Johnson, a champion who has to be disgraced.

"Can you imagine them catching Cathy Freeman," said a black US female athlete. "The whole Olympic thing would be down the toilet, all the money they've spent. No one would watch athletics again."

It will be interesting to see how the trouble affects the effort of the US athletics team, drugs coming up at every post-event press meeting now. Gold medal-winning pole-vaulter Stacy Dragila said she was not going to let Hunter's problems take the shine off her gold.

"I did it clean. This is a time for me to celebrate and I'm having fun, not thinking about outside matters."

Nandrolone carries a two-year competitive ban, so Hunter is out until age 35, too late to try again.

Rogge appears to be correct in his assessment that it is the drug of choice, the reigning world women's hammer throw champion Mahaela Melinte of Romania the latest to return a positive for the drug.

She showed up at Stadium Australia and let fly with a warm-up throw despite an IOC ban. She was asked to leave, refused, and was escorted away.

The test was a month ago. The Romanian authorities were informed two days ago not to let her compete.

The Bulgarian weightlifters thrown out after three positive tests for diuretics, taken by drug cheats to cause purging of the system by sweating and urination, arrived home on Wednesday also maintaining their innocence.

Bulgarian president Peter Stoyanov was quoted as saying, "We cannot accuse ourselves before finding out the whole truth."

That can be hard when you're lying to yourself.