Marion Jones was last night told to pay back an estimated $700,000 (about £340,000) of prize-money after athletics administrators annulled the disgraced American’s results from the past seven years. The International Association of Athletics Federation Council (IAAF) , the world governing body, also handed a two-year ban to Jones, who has already retired and returned the three gold and two bronze Olympic medals that she won at the 2000 Games in Sydney.

The IAAF Council decided not to go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to seek a longer ban and thus prevent Jones from making a dramatic comeback, but she is unable to compete until she pays back the money she owes. Given that Jones is said to be at the point of bankruptcy, that will be a very long time.

Jones quit the sport in tears last month after pleading guilty to lying to federal investigators and admitted taking the designer steroid known as “the clear” from September 2000 to July 2001.

The question of reallocating her medals remains unanswered. The main decision is whether Ekaterina Thanou, the Greek sprinter who was second in the 100 metres in Sydney but embroiled in her own drugs scandal in Athens four years later, gets Jones’s tainted gold. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will now receive a revised results list from the IAAF, but Jacques Rogge, the IOC president, said that there will be no automatic upgrade. The IAAF has not taken a position on Thanou.

The IAAF Council, meeting in Monaco, also recommended the disqualification of the United States women’s 4 x 400 metres and 4 x 100 metres relay teams at the Sydney Olympics and demanded the return of their gold and bronze medals respectively. Jamaica are expected to be awarded the gold and France the bronze.

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