New Balco Drug Claim is Denied By Jones

Marion Jones, winner of a record five Olympic medals, and her boyfriend , the world 100 metres record holder, have been dragged deeper into the drugs scandal threatening to engulf the sport in the run-up to this summer's Athens games.

An American newspaper has claimed that Victor Conte, founder and owner of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative in San Francisco, which is the subject of a government investigation, supplied Jones and Montgomery with banned anabolic steroids in exchange for product endorsements.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Conte had told investigators Jones and Montgomery received a then undetectable steroid known as "the clear" and a testosterone-based steroid known as "the cream" in exchange for endorsing a legal nutritional product manufactured by Balco and called ZMA.

The investigators were told Conte's relationship with Jones ended in the autumn of 2001, a year after she won five medals, including three golds, in the 100m, 200m and 4x400m relay, at Sydney.

Montgomery allegedly received the drugs before breaking the world record in September 2002, according to officials involved in the investigation who declined to be named. In that race in Paris Montgomery achieved 9.78sec, beating Britain's Dwain Chambers, who subsequently tested positive for tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), a steroid supplied to him by Conte.

The steroids the sprinters received were allegedly the same as those supplied to New York Giants baseball star Barry Bonds, whose trainer Greg Anderson has been implicated in the investigation.

Chambers' coach Remi Korchemny is one of four men, including Conte and Anderson, to be charged with running a steroid distribution ring for elite athletes. All four have denied the charges.

"The San Francisco Chronicle story is wrong," said Joseph Burton, a lawyer for Jones, who has denied using banned drugs. "Victor Conte is either lying or when the statement was made it was involuntarily coerced. This is a character assassination of the worst kind."

The latest revelations came only a day after it emerged that 17 days before the Sydney Olympics Conte had deposited a cheque for $7,350 (£4,135) drawn on Jones' bank account.

Rich Nichols, another lawyer for Jones, issued a statement saying his client "never signed, endorsed or approved" the cheque. It was allegedly signed by CJ Hunter, the world shot put champion and her then husband, who was later exposed as having tested positive for steroids. He was banned for two years and the couple later divorced.

Jones, who along with Montgomery testified before the grand jury investigating Balco, has denied a close relationship with Conte, saying it was limited to only a "conversation or two" years ago.

Conte has claimed he worked as her nutritionist before and during the Sydney Olympics. He also claimed to have recruited both Jones and Montgomery for his ZMA Track Club.

Conte's lawyer, Robert Holley, said: "The government put their own spin on anything said by Victor Conte. Victor Conte adamantly denies he ever told the government anything about any specific athletes receiving steroids."

The controversy did not appear to affect Jones' performance at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia on Saturday.

She anchored the 4x100m relay team to a five-metre victory over Jamaica in 42.63 and then returned in the 4x200m to turn a two-metre deficit into victory over another US squad.

At the same meeting the British men's 4x100m relay team finished fourth. The quartet of Dwayne Grant, Julian Golding, Daniel Plummer and Mark Lewis-Francis were no match for an American squad who won in 38.42.

There was more encouraging news for Croydon's Donna Fraser, who at a San Diego meeting triumphed in her first 400m for nearly three years.

Sam Haughian, one of Britain's most promising distance runners, has been killed in a car crash during the last week of a training trip to Johannesburg. He was 24.