Jones to leave Francis for Nike's sake

Marion Jones is to announce this week that she is no longer working with Ben Johnson's former coach Charlie Francis after coming under severe pressure to cut her ties with him from her biggest sponsor, Nike.

Publicly Nike has said that it is a matter for Jones who coaches her, but privately the company has warned her that, if she does not end her association with Francis, plans for a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign centred on her in the lead-up to the 2004 Olympics will be ruined.

"Things have been laid on the line to Marion," said a senior source at Nike. "If she doesn't get out now then it's going to be too late for her and us."

Nike pays Jones a basic $800,000 (£485,000) a year to endorse its products and has plans to use her in television adverts and feature her on billboards across the world during the run-up to the games. It is also the biggest sponsor of USA Track & Field, the sport's governing body in the United States.

Nike is worried that by working with Francis, who admitted under oath in 1989 encouraging Johnson and other athletes he coached to use steroids throughout their careers, Jones's reputation will be tarnished beyond repair.

Jones, winner of a record five Olympic medals in Sydney three years ago, has been so chastened by the coverage that her association with Francis has brought her since it became public in December that she is refusing to be seen with him. Francis's statement at the weekend that he has renounced the use of drugs has failed to take the heat out of the controversy.

When Jones's boyfriend Tim Montgomery, the world record holder for 100 metres, completed a session under Francis's supervision in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Monday she was nowhere to be seen. Francis flew home to Toronto afterwards and it is believed that Jones has no further plans to see him.

The writing was on the wall for Jones when Michael Johnson, who continues to act as a spokesman for Nike despite having retired two years ago, publicly criticised her and urged Europe's promoters not to invite her and Montgomery to their meetings.

"These promoters have lived through and suffered from the black eye that Francis inflicted on athletics with his role in the Ben Johnson scandal, which the sport has still not recovered from 15 years later," said the former sprinter.

Fatal damage may already have been done to Jones's reputation. "If she was an athlete I managed I'd never have advised her to go to Francis," said Mark Block, the husband, coach and agent of her biggest rival, Zhanna Block, the Ukrainian who beat her to the world 100 metres title in Edmonton two years ago.

"I think Jones' moving there will not have aided her credibility at all. It will not help market her. There will always be a question mark: is she or isn't she?"

Montgomery's plans are unclear. He too is sponsored by Nike but he does not enjoy as high a profile as Jones, so there is less compulsion to toe the company line. He is being blamed for introducing Jones to Francis and may continue to want to be coached by him.

Jones has not improved her personal bests for five years and it is believed she was impressed by the technical knowledge that Francis possesses. He called her natural potential "pretty much limitless" if she made some corrections in her technique.

Francis claimed that she was capable of challenging the world 100 metres record of 10.49sec set by Florence Griffith Joyner in 1988. He said: "Anything is believable by her."