Disgraced sprinter Jones seeks basketball career

Disgraced former athletics star Marion Jones has been training with the Women's NBA San Antonio Silver Stars about making a comeback in basketball for European and US teams at age 34.

The one-time hero of the 2000 Sydney Olympics was released from a federal prison in September of last year after serving a six-month sentence for lying about taking performance-enhancing drugs and her role in a check fraud plot.

Jones denied she was a dope cheat for years before finally confessing in federal court that she took once-undetectable steroids in 2000 and 2001, which led to her being stripped of three gold medals and two bronzes from Sydney. Jones, a sprint star before her doping revelation, told the New York Times she had been working with the assistants to Silver Stars coach Dan Hughes since October with hope of playing in Europe soon and the Women's NBA next year.

"I thought it would be an interesting journey if I decided to do this," Jones told the newspaper. "It would give me an opportunity to share my message to young people on a bigger platform.

"It would give me an opportunity to get a second chance." .Jones played college basketball at North Carolina, starting at point guard on the Tar Heels' 1994 US college championship squad.

"It's important for people to know that it's possible to make a mistake in your life, but it's what you do after the mistake that people are going to remember you by," Jones told the Times.

"Are you going to make whatever negatives that happened in your life a positive? Are you going to disappear? That has certainly never been in my horizon." AFP