An article from abcnews…..hmmmmmm:
Marion Jones, conspicuously absent from the track scene since her February marriage, apparently will not compete in the 2007 season. “I’m almost sure she isn’t,” coach Steve Riddick said in a brief telephone interview with The Associated Press on Friday. He said if she was going to run, he would have known by now. He did say the two had spoken, but wouldn’t elaborate. Jones is the defending U.S. 100-meter champion but has not declared her entry into that or any other event at next week’s U.S. championships in Indianapolis. Jones married Barbados-born sprinter Obadele Thompson in an extremely private, small ceremony in a small town near Raleigh, N.C., on Feb. 27. Jones’ representatives never acknowledged the wedding. The minister who performed the ceremony eventually confirmed it. The couple has moved to the Austin, Texas, area, where Thompson already had made his home. Jones, the only woman to win five track medals in an Olympics, made a dramatic comeback last season, culminating in her 14th U.S. title. Her season was disrupted, though, when her “A” sample was positive for the banned endurance-enhancer EPO at the U.S. meet. She was exonerated when her “B” sample was negative. Her longtime agent, Charles Wells, has not returned numerous telephone messages asking for Jones’ status. While the 31-year-old sprinter has slipped out of the public eye, Riddick and Wells have been in the news, and not in a good way. A jury in New York convicted Riddick on May 11 of conspiracy, bank fraud and money laundering. He didn’t want to talk about the case except to say there would be an appeal. “I’ll be all right,” he said. Wells pleaded guilty on March 22 of bank fraud in the same case. The father of Jones’ child, former world 100-meter record holder Tim Montgomery, pleaded guilty in April to cashing bogus checks on behalf of the ring of counterfeiters in the New York case. Jones came up in the case but she was not charged. Bank records indicate that she received a $25,000 check that was counterfeit, but the check never cleared, meaning she did not receive any money, court records said. It was another case of Jones’ associates getting in trouble. The same is true of doping suspicion that has long dogged the sprinter. While her former coach Trevor Graham, former husband C.J. Hunter and Montgomery have served drug suspensions or are under investigation for doping wrongdoing, Jones never has tested positive for a banned substance, other than the EPO sample that was later negated. Jones took off the 2003 season for the birth of her son, then struggled to make the Olympic team only in the long jump. She finished fifth in the long jump at the Olympics. She was part of a botched baton exchange to Lauryn Williams that disqualified the U.S. 400 relay team in the finals. But last year she emerged again as one of the world’s best, running her first sub-11 second 100 since 2002. Her year was highlighted by her 100 triumph to a cheering crowd in Indianapolis. .
Mike Young
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