Ex husband: “Marion Jones used drugs”

If you thought that after failing to qualify in the hundred meters and then dropping out of the 200, things couldn’t get any worse for Belizean ambassador and track star Marion Jones…you were wrong. Newspapers in California today reported that C.J. Hunter, the ex-husband of Jones, told federal investigators that Marion Jones used several banned performance-enhancing drugs during the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. Jones won an unprecedented five track medals at those games, three of them gold. According to the reports, Hunter told Internal Revenue Service investigators during a two and a half hour interview that he injected his then-wife with banned substances and saw Jones inject herself with the drugs at their home in Australia, where they lived during the Sydney Olympics. During the interview, Hunter alleged that Jones had used banned substances before, during and after the Sydney Olympics. The allegations drew a quick response from Marion Jones, who through her attorney, Joseph Burton, accused Hunter of lying out of bitterness over the breakup of their marriage. In a statement released to the Associated Press last night, Burton said: “C.J. Hunter has made false statements to federal officials, and we call upon federal authorities to investigate Hunter’s conduct as it is a crime to lie to federal investigators.” According to one of the memos quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle, Hunter told investigators that he saw Jones inject herself with E.P.O., an endurance-boosting drug, and that she would inject herself in the front waist line area slightly underneath the skin. Marion Jones has qualified for the long jump at next month’s Athens Olympics, with a possibility of being selected on one or more relay teams. She has been under investigation by the U.S. anti-doping agency although she has not been accused of any offense, nor has she ever failed a drug test.