PROFILE: Jones tumbles from celebrity to pariah

By John Mehaffey

LONDON (Reuters) - Poised, articulate and gloriously talented, Marion Jones was an immediate sensation on her first tour of Europe in 1997.

While Carl Lewis was making his farewell circuit of the continent's great athletics stadia, Jones captivated opponents, spectators and journalists alike.

Three years later Jones would enter territory where even Lewis and Jesse Owens did not venture.

At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the American planned to add the 4x400 meters relay gold to the 100, 200, 4x100 and long jump titles won by Lewis in Los Angeles in 1984 and Owens at the 1936 Berlin Games.

Jones finished with three golds and two bronzes, was featured on the covers of Vogue, Time and Newsweek magazines and clinched multi-million dollar contracts.

Seven years later the 32-year-old was a sporting pariah after confessing tearfully in public to taking drugs before her Sydney triumphs and was also, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times, heavily in debt.

On Friday, Jones was sentenced to six months in prison for lying to federal prosecutors about her steroid use.

The Jones story began in Los Angeles. She idolized 1988 Olympic double sprint champion Florence Griffith Joyner, who was to die in her sleep 10 years later, and became a top athlete.

There was one small blot on her CV. As a teenager Jones missed a drugs test and her mother hired a lawyer to avoid a four-year sanction.

Her choice was Johnnie Cochrane, who successfully defended OJ Simpson on a murder charge.

FASTEST MARKS

Jones won her first world 100 meters title at the 1997 Athens world championships. At the World Cup in Johannesburg the following year she clocked what were to remain her fastest times for the 100 and 200, altitude-assisted marks of 10.65 and 21.62 seconds.

She was married to burly shot putter CJ Hunter, who won the world title at the 1999 Seville world championships but pulled out of the Sydney Games citing a knee injury.

In Sydney, Jones romped to victory in the 100 and 200 and won bronze in the long jump and 4x100 relay. An astonishing third leg in the 4x400 gave the American a third gold.

But by then a shadow had fallen over Sydney after Hunter admitted he had tested positive for nandrolone four times in 1999.