Disgraced sprinter Jones tells Oprah she's retired

By Michael Conlon

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Disgraced U.S. sprinter Marion Jones told talk show host Oprah Winfrey in an interview aired on Wednesday she will never compete again, but feels she would have won five Olympic medals even without an illegal drug.

In her first interview since completing a six-month prison term for lying to government prosecutors about drug use, Jones insisted she never thought she was being given anything beyond legal vitamins and supplements, and was told the drug that led to her downfall was just flaxseed oil.

"Never knowingly did I take performance enhancing drugs," she told the talk show host during a sometimes emotional interview taped on Friday in which she wept at one point.

"I will never run again. I've retired from the sport," she said, but "with a bit of sadness because I love to compete."

Jones's comments about drugs use were disputed by the founder of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) that was at the center of sports's largest doping scandal.

"I cannot believe Marion Jones continues to lie," Conte, who spent four months in prison for his role in the scandal, said in an e-mail to Reuters and other news organizations.

"Enough is enough," Conte added. "She knowingly used performance enhancing drugs and has already been to prison for lying about it in the first place."

Conte said in the e-mail he met with Jones in a West Covina, California hotel room in 2001 and showed her how to inject a growth hormone.

"Was he lying?" Oprah asked Jones of Conte's prior allegations that she had knowingly taken performance-enhancing drugs.

"He was lying," Jones said.

Jones said during the interview she no longer has "Marion Jones the athlete" to hide behind and is anxious to get on with her life, including raising her two children, ages 1 and 5.

In the 2000 Sydney Games, Jones became the first woman to win five medals -- three gold and two bronze -- in a single competition. But the International Olympic Committee stripped her of the medals and banned her from competition through last summer's Games in Beijing.

Jones admitted in 2007 she lied to federal prosecutors about her steroid use and was also found guilty of misleading investigators about a bank fraud case involving her ex-boyfriend and the father of her 5-year-old, former 100-metres world record holder Tim Montgomery.

Jones said she remembered the moment she decided to lie about her drug use -- when prosecutors showed her a sample of tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), which was also known as "the clear."

"I knew that I had taken that substance, I made the decision that I was gonna lie and I was gonna, you know, try and cover it up," she said.