Athletics: Jones Struggling to Keep Up

Marion Jones's astonishing decline continued at the Grand Prix Regione Lombardia in Milan last night.

The 29-year-old American, universally acknowledged as the greatest female athlete in history after winning a record five Olympic medals in Sydney in 2000, ran her slowest 100 metres for more than 11 years as she clocked 11.67sec in the Arena Civica Gianni Brera.

That was more than a second slower than she ran in 1998. Even as a 15-year-old schoolgirl in 1990 she was running half a second quicker.

This was her third race of the season and she has got slower with each one. Just as she did in Hengelo on Sunday, she finished second to the Bahamian Chandra Sturrup, a former training partner, but looked unimpressive in a field made up of women who once would not have got within five metres of her.

Jones denies her sudden lack of speed is anything suspicious but all the evidence points to the fact that her worsening performances have coincided with the start of the FBI investigation into the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative in San Francisco.

Victor Conte, the founder and owner of Balco, has claimed he provided Jones with a mixture of banned performance-enhancing drugs. He is supported by CJ Hunter, Jones's former husband who himself was once banned for two years after testing positive for anabolic steroids.

Jones has denied the allegations and is currently suing Conte for $25m (£13.7m). Her case may be further undermined, though, next Monday when Tim Montgomery, the world 100m record holder who is her current partner and the father of her child, faces a hearing before the Court of Arbitration for Sport where he could be banned for life over charges levelled against him after the raid on Balco.

Jones had claimed at a press conference in Milan on the eve of this meeting that she felt "renewed enthusiasm to run fast again". There was little evidence of that last night as she recorded a time that would not have ranked among the top 100 in the world in 2004.

The men's 100m race also brought an unwelcome reminder to the American that almost everyone with whom she has been connected within the sport has previous when it comes to doping. The winner was the Jamaican Patrick Jarrett, who was training alongside Jones in 2001 under her then coach Trevor Graham when he tested positive for anabolic steroids and was banned for two years. He won in 10.36sec as Britain's Mark Lewis-Francis finished second.

In that context Lewis-Francis's crime of testing positive for cannabis ranks as a petty misdemeanour. But his continuing refusal to talk about the incident does neither him nor his advisers any favours. "Let's skip over that," said the 22-year-old from Birmingham.