Jones Struggles in Long Jump
Marion Jones' smile has long since faded. Stern-faced and silent, she is struggling just to make the U.S. Olympic team.
Two days after she failed to make the team in the 100, Jones was a stunning seventh in the long-jump qualifying Monday night at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials.
Her best effort of 20 feet, 11 3/4 inches was more than a foot shorter than what she jumped a decade ago at Thousand Oaks, Calif., High School.
Ola Sesay led the qualifiers at 21-9. Grace Upshaw, the only other U.S. jumper who has met the Olympic standard, was second at 21-5 1/2 . The top 12 advanced to Thursday's finals.
Jones' first jump was her best, followed by marks of 20-9 3/4 and 20-8 1/2 . The odds still favor Jones making the Athens team in the long jump because she is one of only two U.S. jumpers who have met the Olympic qualifying standard of 21-11 3/4 .
If she isn't in the top three in tomorrow's finals, and those who beat her fail to reach the qualifying mark by Aug. 9, Jones would make the U.S. team.
That's not the route the long jump bronze medalist at the 2000 Olympics would ever expect to take.
But nothing is easy these days for the embattled track and field star who four years ago became the first athlete in the sport to win five Olympic medals, three of them gold.
Jones never passed through the ``mixed zone,'' where she was mobbed by reporters and television crews on Saturday. Instead, she slipped out through a back gate.
While Jones, who also is entered in the 200 meters later in the trials, toiled under the glare of an investigation by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, there were triumphs under the lights at Hornet Stadium on the track Monday night.
Jearl Miles-Clark earned a trip to her fifth Olympics with a victory in the women's 800 meters. Miles-Clark went to the 1988 games in the relay pool, but did not run. She has competed in the last three Olympics.
``She deserved it. I'm so proud of her,'' her sister-in-law Hazel Clark said. ``It's her last Olympic trials, she's so tough. I admire her so much. She represents a clean athlete and has a lot of dignity, great morals. She is my role model.''
Hazel Clark was third in the race, earning a second trip to the Olympics. Nicole Teeter was second. Hazel Clark got a big surprise as she left the track when boyfriend Wenston Riley proposed to her. She said a loud ``yes'' as he hugged her and lifted her off the ground.
Shayne Culpepper, wife of U.S. marathoner Alan Culpepper, won the women's 5,000 in 15:07.41, edging three-time defending U.S. champion Marla Runyon by seven-hundredths of a second. Shalane Flanagan was third.
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