The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced Tuesday that IOC President Jacques Rogge has set up a Disciplinary Commission to investigate remarks on ABC’s 20/20 Friday, made by Victor Conte, head of the California-based Balco laboratory.
Conte said in the broadcast that he gave Olympian Marion Jones performance-enhancing drugs before and after the Sydney Olympic Games where she won five medals. He said he watched as she injected herself with a human growth hormone. He said he worked with Jones from August 2000 to September 2001 and designed a doping regiment for her that included the previously undetectable steroid THG, the endurance-enhancing hormone EPO, human growth hormone and insulin.
The Disciplinary Commission will be responsible for conducting an investigation and will present a report to the IOC Executive Board, which has the authority to take decisions in relation to the Olympic Games.
World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) head Dick Pound said Jones should be stripped of her medals if Conte is telling the truth.
Under the IOC charter Olympic decisions can be challenged within three years of the Games’ closing ceremony. The Sydney Games ended more than four years ago, on Oct. 1, 2000.
But IOC member Thomas Bach of Germany, who heads the three-member investigative panel, said the three-year rule shouldn’t apply in this case.
Bach said there is no time frame for the investigation. He said he doesn’t expect to finish the probe before the next IOC board meeting, which takes place February 10 and 11 in Turin, Italy.
