Newspaper claims Marion Jones has financial woes

She won five medals in the 2000 Sydney Olympics and captured the hearts of Belizeans everywhere when she displayed our flag in victory. But despite earning millions in product endorsements and appearance fees, it appears that years of legal battles against unproven accusations have left Marion Jones deeply in debt. Citing court records from a recent lawsuit, the Los Angeles Times newspaper is reporting that a bank has foreclosed on her two point five million U.S. dollar mansion in North Carolina and she was also forced to sell two other properties, including her mother’s house, in order to raise funds. According to her own deposition in the lawsuit she filed against former coach Dan Pfaff, the track star has liquid assets of less than three thousand dollars. Jones was unsuccessful in her legal action and was ordered to pay almost a quarter million dollars when Pfaff countersued for unpaid training expenses. Where did all the money go? Some, no doubt, to support a champion’s lifestyle, but much went to legal expenses to fight accusations of drug use that emerged as part of the BALCO scandal in 2003. Last year she tested positive for the performance enhancing drug EPO but was cleared when a backup sample tested negative. Following a short-lived marriage to shot-putter C.J. Hunter and a child with sprinter Tim Montgomery, Jones married Barbadian Olympic bronze medallist Obadele Thompson in February in an unpublicised ceremony. The couple live in Austin, Texas. Despite hints that she would be making a comeback, it appears that Jones will be sitting out the 2007 track season. The only woman to ever win five medals in a single Olympics, Jones is a citizen of both the United States, where she was born, and Belize, the birthplace of her mother, Marion Hulse Toler.