Jones, Marion

(born October 12, 1975, Los Angeles, California, U.S.) American athlete who, at the 2000 Olympic Games, became the first woman to win five track-and-field medals at a single Olympics.

Jones early displayed talent on the track, and her family moved several times during her adolescence so that she could compete on prominent junior high and high school teams. By the time she was 12 years old, Jones, whose tenacity earned her the nickname “Hard Nails,” began competing internationally, and in 1992 she won a place as an alternate on the U.S. Olympic track team but declined the invitation. Jones was also an accomplished basketball player, winning California's Division 1 Player of the Year Award in 1993. She attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on a basketball scholarship, and in 1994, during her freshman year, she helped the women's basketball team win the national title. Jones, who continued to run track, decided to sit out the 1995–96 basketball season in order to train for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. A series of foot injuries, however, prevented her from trying out for the U.S. Olympic track team. She then returned to basketball, and in 1997 she was named the Most Valuable Player of the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament.

After graduating in 1997, Jones rededicated herself to track. Later that year she won the 100 metres at the world championship in Athens with a time of 10.83 seconds, which earned her the title “world's fastest woman.” In 1998 she became the first American woman to be ranked number one in three track-and-field events simultaneously—the 100 metres, the 200 metres, and the long jump. At the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia, she won gold medals in the 100 metres (10.75 seconds), the 200 metres (21.84 seconds), and the 4 ´ 400-metre relay (3 minutes 22.62 seconds); she also claimed bronze medals in the long jump and the 4 ´ 100-metre relay. At the 2001 world championships, Jones won gold medals in the 200 metres and the 4 ´ 100-metre relay, and she went undefeated during the 2002 season. She took much of 2003 off because of the birth of her son (whose father was track star Timothy Montgomery).