Marion Jones juggles motherhood, workouts a year before Olympics

By ROB GLOSTER
AP Sports Writer

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) Marion Jones gets in one last cuddle with her 6{-week-old son and heads to her day job as the world's fastest woman.

``I say, `All right, now, Monty. Mommy has to go to work. When you want to go to Harvard, someone has to pay the tuition,''' Jones says.

Jones, the star of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, already is back to her pre-pregnancy weight of 159 pounds. She's been back on the track for a month, and feels ready to race.

Exactly one year before the start of the Athens Games, Jones is preparing her comeback and even during those 4 a.m. feedings thinking ahead to more Olympic gold.

Jones, 27, won an unprecedented five track medals at the 2000 Games three of them gold. She has been the dominant female sprinter in the world for the last few years, and a top long jumper.

She is taking this season off though she won't absolutely rule out a return in September and focusing on the Summer Games, which begin Aug. 13, 2004.

For now, she's juggling three to four hours of daily workouts with diapering, feeding and pampering Tim Montgomery named for his dad, the world-record holder in the 100 meters, who is Jones' boyfriend and training partner.

``I had a preference for a boy,'' Jones said Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press. ``I'm a tomboy and I don't know how to braid hair and I don't like pink.''

Jones found out she was pregnant last December. She was still running in spikes until February. During those three months, she and Montgomery broke with longtime coach Trevor Graham and began a short, controversial relationship with disgraced coach Charlie Francis.

Francis supplied steroids to Ben Johnson, who was stripped of his 100-meter gold medal at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, and has been a pariah in the track world ever since despite being considered a top technician.

While the track world focused on whether that would hurt Jones' career, she already knew she would skip the season and the world championships that begin next week in Paris to give birth.

It was a smooth pregnancy for Jones no morning sickness, no cravings. She rarely skipped a workout despite gaining 25 pounds.

She was in the pool and striding on a treadmill until late June, rushing home from workouts to read all about childbirth and practice her breathing techniques.

``The first time I felt him kick, that was so great,'' she says.

All that did little to lessen her competitive spirit. During her workouts at the YMCA, she'd turn away from the TV when track highlights came on.

``I couldn't watch, because I wanted to be there so bad,'' she says. ``That's been my life for all these years. It just doesn't disappear overnight.''

On June 28, with her due date still 18 days away, she started feeling slight pressure in her belly. Tim's younger brother, Gamar, drove her to the hospital. Tim was in Scotland for a track meet. Though it was the middle of the night in Europe, he called constantly.

``He's on the cell phone and I'm like, `Baby, I'm having contractions, you have to give me a break.'''

Monty, weighing in at 5 pounds, 11 ounces, was born at 9:58 p.m. on June 28. His daddy called at 9:59 and heard one of his son's first cries.

``The best moment was obviously the first time I saw him, and bringing him home the first time,'' Jones says. ``I took him around the house, I introduced him to the dog.''

The first three or four weeks, Monty just slept except at night.

``You're awake, Monty, it's 4 a.m. and Mommy is really tired,'' she pleaded with him.

The last couple of weeks have been more fun.

``It's so great to see a little human being changing in front of your eyes,'' she says, her voice rising with excitement. ``Every day is the best.''

Jones has had plenty of help. Montgomery left the track circuit to be home for the first few weeks after the birth. Montgomery's mom, who has moved from her South Carolina home, stays with the baby at night. Jones' mom takes care of Monty during workouts.

Jones is not sure if she'll go to Paris to watch the world championships, where she would have defended her title in the 200 and been favored in the 100. She'd like to be there to cheer on Montgomery.

He sure could use the help.

Montgomery, who set the world record of 9.78 seconds last year in Paris, has struggled through the coaching changes this season. And he has been especially lead-footed since the birth, finishing sixth in 10.37 at a meet in Stockholm and failing to make the final of a race in London.

``It's been crazy, I'd been jumping up and down, changing diapers, watching Marion train, training myself,'' Montgomery said after the Stockholm race.

Montgomery shocked the track world, and Jones, by announcing in London last week that Jones would race Sept. 5 in Brussels. Jones says she has no such intention.

``Tim, he thinks sometimes that I can do it all. He hears my confidence during workouts,'' she says.

And she is very confident, saying she could hold her own against the world's top runners right now. She even hints about possibly running in a race in Moscow in mid-September.

``The chances of it not happening are more likely than it happening,'' she says.

For now, the focus is Athens. Though she'd like Monty to have siblings, Jones says that would wait until her retirement after the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The day she brought Monty home, Jones was lying in bed with him and heard a TV anchor talk about the pressure the child will face.

``I said, `Baby, you have no pressure on you, you just do your own thing.' My career is now down the list of priorities in my life, he's the top priority,'' she says.

``My greatest hope is that he's healthy, happy and follows his own path in life.''

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)