Athletics: Jones is back - with all her baggage

It is sadly ironic that Marion Jones should be returning from maternity leave at a time when the track-and-field world is mourning the loss of Fanny Blankers-Koen. "The flying Dutch-woman", who died a week ago at the age of 85, was the mother of all athletes. As a 30-year-old mother of two, Blankers-Koen was dismissed as a spent force going into the London Olympics of 1948. She won four gold medals, a record haul by a female athlete in a single Olympic Games. Jones attempted to win five in Sydney four years ago. She had to settle for three golds, plus two bronze medals.

It is not simply in the Midas-touch department, however, that Jones is falling some way short of Blankers-Koen, who struck gold in the 100m, 200m, 80m hurdles and the 4 x 100m relay at Wembley and who was voted Female Athlete of the 20th Century by the International Association of Athletics Federations. The indoor 60m in the Verizon Millrose Games at New York's Madison Square Garden on Friday will be Jones's first race since she finished her unbeaten 2002 outdoor season with a 100m win at the IAAF World Cup in Madrid. Since then - as well as giving birth to Tim Jnr, the son of her partner, 100m world record-holder Tim Montgomery - her image as the latter-day golden girl of athletics has become somewhat shrouded in controversy.

Last winter Jones and Montgomery prompted outrage when they left their coach, Trevor Graham, to work under the guidance of Charlie Francis, the guru behind Ben Johnson's drug-boosted life in the fast lane. The athletics world screamed its disapproval, and meeting promoters threatened to withdraw invitations to the sport's so-called golden couple. It was only when pressure was applied by their chief sponsor, Nike, that Jones and Montgomery agreed to terminate the association. They did so with Montgomery publicly singing the praises of Francis, who is still banned from coaching in his own country, Canada, 16 years after Johnson's failed drugs test at the Seoul Olympics. The American couple are now coached by Dan Pfaff, who helped Donovan Bailey gain Olympic 100m gold in Atlanta eight years ago.

This winter Jones, who continues her comeback with a competitive appearance at the Norwich Union Grand Prix in Birmingham on 20 February, and Montgomery have been drawn into the scandal surrounding the discovery of the designer steroid tetrahydrogestrinone (THG). In November they were called to testify to a federal grand jury in San Francisco investigating Victor Conte, a nutritionist, to whose Californian laboratory THG has allegedly been traced. Neither Jones nor Montgomery has been linked with the banned drug, but both have been listed as clients of Conte and his company, Balco.

Jones appeared on a Balco website endorsing ZMA, zinc monomethionine asparatate, a legal hormone-boosting product. "I had a number of tests done on my blood at Balco Laboratories," Jones was quoted as saying. "I learned that I was really deficient in both zinc and magnesium. ZMA has really helped me."

Conte is being investigated for money laundering, health-care fraud and steroid trafficking. In September 2000 he appeared alongside Jones at a press conference in Sydney after it was revealed that the shot putter C J Hunter, Jones's husband at the time, had tested positive on four separate occasions for the anabolic steroid nandrolone, registering 1,000 times above the allowable limit. Jones broke from her "drive for five" gold medals at the Sydney Olympics to stand by her man. The little-known Conte stood by him too, announcing himself as Hunter's nutritionist and claiming his client had been an innocent victim of supplement contamination.

Also supporting Hunter that day was Johnnie Cochran, the courtroom saviour of O J Simpson, who said he was in attendance "as a family friend". Back in 1992, when Jones was a 16-year-old high- school sprinter, Cochran helped her escape punishment after she failed to attend a drugs test. In Hunter's case, he could do nothing to prevent a two-year ban. Eight months later Hunter and Jones separated. In 2002 they divorced.

Four years on, at the age of 28, Jones is emerging with all her baggage for another Olympic "drive for five". In Sydney she steered off-track at the third hurdle, taking bronze in the long jump behind Heike Drechsler and Fiona May (the naturalised Italian who returns to her native Britain to compete in the AAA Indoor Championships in Sheffield next weekend). At the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham on 20 February, Jones will be long-jumping indoors for the first time, as well as contesting the 60m, raising the intriguing possibility of a head-to-head with the emerging female star of track and field, Carolina Kluft. Somewhere on the European circuit, possibly at the World Indoors in Budapest in March.

For the time being, however, Jones is merely looking forward to competing. "After a year out of competition having a baby, I feel it is important to get back on track at the earliest opportunity," she said, speaking from her training camp in the Cayman Islands. It is important for the bank balance too, of course. After winning her three golds in Sydney four years ago, Jones was rewarded with a £10m contract from Nike. After winning her five golds in London in 1948, Fanny Blankers-Koen was presented with a new bicycle by the city of Amsterdam.