mrontemp: More on the Medals of the Medals of Jearl Miles Clark, Monique Hennagan, La Tasha Colander-Richardson, and Andrea Anderson

Followup.

Regarding the question of whether Marion Jones' teammates should be punished for Jones' steroid use, Bret offers the following observation:

I guess I would have to pose a hypothetical scenario to answer the question. If a relay team racer false starts or passes the baton outside the exchange zone, then isn't the entire disqualified? I believe the answer is yes. The fault of one impacts the entire team in this situation. Therefore so too does Jones' doping practices. If the Olympic committee plans to strip her of her relay gold, then they must do so for the entire team.

And Mark Parton (no, not related to Dolly - Mark is from Australia) offers the following wisdom:

[H]ow's about the situation for the U.S. 4 x 400 metre relay team. They won the gold medal in Sydney, but Marion Jones was on the team. Surely now, they will all lose their gold medals. Do you reckon Marion will be popular with her team mates....

La Tasha Colander-Richardson, Monique Hennagan and Jearl Miles-Clark will all lose their gold medals. This will cap off what has been a very rough life for Jearl Miles-Clark. It all started when her parents decided to call her Jearl. What sort of a name is Jearl ? No wonder she can run fast.

"What did you have ? A boy or a girl ? "

"We had a Jearl"

Her gold medal is probably the only thing that kept her going and now they're going to take it away.

And Lee Leigh quotes from the AP, you see?

Marion Jones has given up the five medals she won at the Sydney Olympics, days after admitting she used performance-enhancing drugs....

It wasn't immediately clear what will happen next. The IOC and other sports bodies can go back eight years to strip medals and nullify results. In Jones' case, that would include the 2000 Olympics, where she won gold in the 100 meters, 200 meters and 1,600 relay and bronze in the long jump and 400 relay.

The standings normally would be readjusted, with the second-place finisher moving up to gold, third to silver and fourth to bronze....

The relays could be a trickier issue, because there are more people involved. Jearl Miles-Clark, Monique Hennagan, Tasha Colander-Richardson and Andrea Anderson all won golds as part of the 1,600-meter relay. Jamaica finished second.

Chryste Gaines, Torri Edwards, Nanceen Perry and Passion Richardson were on the 400-meter relay, which finished third ahead of France.

And the Black Rod assumes that the teammates' loss of medals is a done deal:

The International Olympic Committee is now preparing to strip Jones of those medals-- gold in the 100 metre dash, gold in the 200 metres, gold in the 1600 metre relay, bronze in the long jump and bronze in the 400 metre relay.

The impact of that act will be felt by 29 women---the 29 victims of Marion Jones.

Six--Jones' relay partners--will lose the medals they thought they won. 23 others will get medals they were cheated out of at Sydney....

The results of the 1600 relay were:

1. United States (Jearl Miles-Clark, Gainesville, Fla.; Monique Hennagan, Columbia, S.C.; Marion Jones, Los Angeles; La Tasha Colander-Richardson, Portsmouth, Va.), 3:22.62.
2. Jamaica (Sandie Richards; Catherine Scott-Pomales; Deon Hemmings; Lorraine Graham), 3:23.25.
3. Russia (Yulia Sotnikova; Svetlana Gontcharenko; Olga Kotlyarova; Irina Privalova), 3:23.46.
4. Nigeria (Olabisi Afolabi; Charity Opara; Rosemary Okafor; Falilat Ogunkoya), 3:23.80.

Jamaica will get the gold. Russia the silver. And Nigeria the bronze.

Marion Jones' teammates will lose their medals.

For LaTasha Colander, it means she will lose the only Olympics medal she's ever won.

Monique Hennagan can comfort herself with the gold medal she won at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

Jearl Miles-Clark has a silver from the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and a gold from the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.