Marion sues accuser for $25 million

Marion Jones is fighting back against allegations that she took banned performance enhancing drugs during the Sydney 2000 Olympics. On Wednesday the track and field star, who holds both Belizean and U.S. nationality, filed a twenty-five million dollar lawsuit against Victor Conte, head of a San Francisco laboratory who claimed in a television interview that he had provided Jones with the drugs and on one occasion watched her inject herself. The lawsuit claims that the motive for Conte’s accusations is his repeated failure to get her to commercially endorse his company’s dietary supplements. “Driven by his long-standing vendetta with Jones, Conte seems willing to do and say whatever it takes to destroy her career and reputation”, claim Jones’s attorneys in papers filed in the U.S. District Court for Northern California. The twenty-five million dollar figure is an estimate of income the sprinter stands to lose from competitions, promotional appearances and endorsements. As a result of the Conte allegations, which appeared several weeks ago on ABC’s 20/20, the International Olympic Committee has appointed a commission to investigate the charges, which, if found credible, could result in the taking away of Jones’s five Olympic medals. Conte is one of four men facing criminal prosecution in a wide-ranging scandal involving baseball great Barry Bonds and other top athletes. For Belizeans the issue is less about whether Marion Jones did or did not take banned drugs–a practice increasingly common in all sports–than it is about supporting a true daughter of the soil who, when it came to the most important moment of her life, put the Belize flag first.