Marion Jones

Madrid: Future record books may show there was no winner of the women’s 100 meters at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. The IOC officials said Thursday they are considering the unprecedented step of leaving the gold-medal spot vacant following Marion Jones’ confession that she used performance-enhancing drugs.

“That could be a solution,” said IOC board member Denis Oswald, a member of the three-man disciplinary commission dealing with the Jones case.

Although the original second-place finisher normally would be upgraded to the gold, the International Olympic Committee is reluctant to give the medal to Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou because she was caught up in a doping scandal at the 2004 Athens Games.

“In a way, it’s logical and consistent that we should just move her up, but there is another feeling,” Oswald said in an interview during a break in the world anti-doping conference. “We’ll see how insistent she (Thanou) is. The best way would be not to do anything and just leave it as it is and there is no gold.” The IOC president Jacques Rogge said no final decision had been made but that “anything was possible,” including leaving the result blank.

Last week, Rogge said the IOC only would upgrade athletes who were determined to be “clean.”

Jones won gold medals in the 100 meters, 200 and the 1,600-meter relay in Sydney, as well as bronzes in the 400 relay and long jump. After acknowledging last month that she started doping before those Olympics, Jones returned all five medals to the IOC.

Thanou and fellow Greek runner Kostas Kenteris set off a major scandal at the Athens Games when they failed to show for drug tests on the eve of the opening ceremony and said they were injured in a motorcycle accident. They eventually withdrew from the games and later were suspended for two years.

Oswald, a Swiss lawyer, said Thanou’s situation presented tricky legal and moral issues.

“In 2000, although there were some suspicions already, nothing was established,” he said. “At that time, there was no positive and nothing against her. We never did anything to challenge her silver medal. The rules say you move up. Legally, it's pretty clear. But it’s more an ethical issue.”

Finishing behind Jones and Thanou in the 100 in Sydney was Tanya Lawrence, with fellow Jamaican Merlene Ottey fourth. They also stand to move up one spot in the placings. Pauline Davis-Thompson of the Bahamas won the silver behind Jones in the 200, with Sri Lanka’s Susanthika Jayasinghe third and Jamaica’s Beverly McDonald fourth.

The IOC is awaiting recommendations from the International Association of Athletics Federations before deciding on how to revise the medals. The IAAF council is scheduled to consider the case next week.

The IAAF and IOC also must decide whether Jones’ American relay teammates should lose their medals. Jamaica finished second in the 1,600-meter relay, with Russia third and Nigeria fourth. France was fourth behind the US in the 400 relay. The IOC ruling could come at the December 10-12 executive board meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland. If not, the next IOC board meeting is in April in Beijing. The WADA president Dick Pound, meanwhile, said he would like an “audit” of all of Jones’ doping tests to learn how she was able to beat the system for so long.

“It is not much fun to find that someone who has been tested 160 times admits to doping,” he said. “I am not happy to hear that someone who had that many tests was a user for that many years.” (AP)