6 months in jail for Marion

US District Court judge Kenneth Karas imposed the sentence after Jones pleaded guilty to two charges last October, part of a stunning demise of the five-time medalist from the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Karas gave Jones six months for lying about steroid use and two months — to run concurrently — for a separate charge of misleading federal investigators about her knowledge of a checque fraud case involving her ex-boyfriend, former 100 metres world record holder Tim Montgomery.

Jones, 32, became the biggest name in international sport to admit to using steroids with her guilty plea in October. She tearfully admitted to betraying the trust of her fans and country after years of vehemently denying she used performance enhancing drugs.

She confessed to lying to federal investigators in 2003 when she denied knowing that she took the banned substance tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), known as “the clear,” before the 2000 Olympics.

Jones, who once pulled in millions of dollars in product endorsements, is now in financial ruin.

Poised, articulate and gloriously talented, Marion Jones was an immediate sensation on her first tour of Europe in 1997. While Carl Lewis was making his farewell circuit of the continent’s great athletics stadia, Jones captivated opponents, spectators and journalists alike.

Three years later, Jones would enter territory where even Lewis and Jesse Owens did not venture.

At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the American planned to add the 4x400 metres relay gold to the 100, 200, 4x100 and long jump titles won by Lewis in Los Angeles in 1984 and Owens at the 1936 Berlin Games.

Jones finished with three gold and two bronze medals, was featured on the covers of Vogue, Time and Newsweek magazines and clinched multi-million dollar contracts.

Seven years later the 32-year-old was a sporting pariah.

The Jones story began in Los Angeles. She idolised 1988 Olympic double sprint champion Florence Griffith Joyner, who was to die in her sleep 10 years later, and became a top athlete.

There was one small blot on her CV. As a teenager Jones missed a drugs test and her mother hired a lawyer to avoid a four-year sanction. Her choice was Johnnie Cochrane, who successfully defended OJ Simpson on a murder charge.

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