RALEIGH, North Carolina — Marion Jones’s drive for five Olympic gold medals can now shift into high gear.
The sprint star has been named to both US relay squads for the Sydney Games, officially making her dream of becoming the first female athletics competitor to capture five golds at a single Games a possibility.

Jones will be part of 10-member US pools for both the 4 x 100-metre and 4×400 relays, US women’s coach Karen Dennis said in an interview from her office at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.

Jones plans to compete in both relays as well as in the 100m and 200m and long jump in Sydney. She earned team spots in the individual events at the US Olympic trials.

Although Jones did not run the 400m event at the trials, ‘the other women know Marion has earned the right to run [the 4×400 relay],’ Dennis said.

In addition to Jones, the US 4×100 relay pool includes the next seven finishers in the women’s 100m at the trials: Inger Miller, Chryste Gaines, Torri Edwards, Gail Devers, Nanceen Perry, Carlette Guidry and Passion Richardson. Semifinalists Shakedia Jones and Angela Williams also were named to the pool.

The 4×400 relay pool includes Jones and the top eight finishers in the women’s 400m at the trials: LaTasha Colander-Richardson, Jearl Miles-Clark, Michelle Collins, Monique Hennagan, Mikele Barber, Andrea Anderson, Maicel Malone-Wallace and Monique Henderson. Semifinalist Youlanda Warren also was selected.

Henderson is a 17-year-old California high school student.

‘I’m just covering all of the bases in the event we need people to run rounds or in the event we lose some folks,’ Dennis said of the large number of selections.

All of the 4×100 relay choices will travel to Europe for practice. ‘They will all probably run in a relay,’ Dennis said. ‘It may not be in the same meet; it may not be the same people, but everybody will get an opportunity to run.’

The US athletes will have training camps in Monaco and Berlin and will compete in meetings at Monaco, Brussels and Berlin.

The 4×400 selections will do their training at the US pre-Olympic camp in Brisbane, Australia.

The US men’s relay pools were named earlier this week with world-record holders Michael Johnson and Maurice Greene among the selections. Johnson was picked to anchor the 4×400 relay and Greene for similar duties in the 4×100 relay.

Gene Cherry Reuters

Source: SOCOG