Athletics: Jones rebukes IOC head

Marion Jones has reacted angrily after the president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, said she had been "stupid" to become involved with certain people.

Marion Jones has reacted angrily after the president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, said she had been "stupid" to become involved with certain people.

The American triple Olympic gold medallist said that Rogge had been out of line when he said that, although no evidence had been found to implicate her in drug abuse, she had displayed a lack of judgement.

Jones and her partner, Tim Montgomery, were among dozens of athletes who testified in the case involving the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, a California sports supplement company accused of being at the centre of a doping ring. Jones has also worked with Charlie Francis, the coach tainted by association with Ben Johnson.

"It's an extremely ignorant comment to make, not knowing the circumstances and not knowing the situation," Jones said, adding that if Rogge had asked her first, "I could have explained to him the situation... which he knows little about."