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LAUSANNE - The International Olympic Committee today stripped US sprinter Marion Jones of her five Sydney 2000 Olympics medals after she admitted in court in October to taking banned substances.
"She is disqualified and scrapped from the results," IOC President Jacques Rogge told reporters after an executive board meeting.
"We disqualified Marion Jones from the five events she took part in Sydney and for one event in Athens (2004 Olympics) which is the long jump where she was fifth," Rogge said.
Rogge said she was also banned from the 2008 Beijing Olympics in any capacity and the IOC reserved the right for any further sanction.
Jones, who became the first woman to win five medals in a single Olympics after winning gold in the 100 metres, 200 metres and 4x400 metres relay and taking bronze in the long jump and 4x100m relay, could go to jail for lying to federal investigators.
Jones returned her medals to the United States Olympic Committee after telling the court in White Plains, New York she had taken the banned substance known as "clear" from September 2000 to July 2001. She accepted a two-year ban from the sport.
Jones also pleaded guilty to two counts of providing false statements to federal investigators and check fraud and will be sentenced in January.
The upgrading of athletes, though initially expected at this IOC meeting, has been delayed for a few months pending legal issues regarding Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou, the silver medallist in the 100 metres behind Jones.
Rogge said he would await more information regarding an ongoing US investigation into the BALCO laboratory that supplied banned substances to several prominent athletes before awarding any of Jones' medals to athletes who were runners-up.
Thanou was banned for two years after failing to appear at three dope tests, the last on the eve of the 2004 Games in Athens.
- REUTERS
