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LOS ANGELES : Former Olympic superstar Marion Jones on Friday began a six-month jail sentence for lying about her steroid use, a punishment likely to grab the attention of baseball home run king Barry Bonds.
Jones, 32, reported to the Federal Medical Center-Carswell, a correctional facility in Fort Worth, Texas, US Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Traci Billingsley said.
Her incarceration demonstrated the increasing role of government authorities in tackling doping, an issue once left to sports officials.
Like Jones, Bonds is facing perjury charges that stem from the BALCO steroid distribution scandal.
Baseball pitching great Roger Clemens is also now the target of a perjury probe, after members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform questioned whether he lied under oath when he denied using performance enhancing drugs during a Congressional hearing.
The high profile cases - news of Jones's arrival at prison was broken by the People.com celebrity news website - come amid calls from some lawmakers to tackle doping in sports with legislation.
Athletics officials were never able to prove doping allegations against Jones, which she vehemently denied for years and boasted that her clean drug tests proved her innocence.
But when faced with charges of lying to federal agents about taking steroids and about her role in a check fraud scheme, Jones made a tearful confession last October.
She admitted she used BALCO's designer steroid THG from September of 2000 to July of 2001 and was sentenced to six months in jail and two years of probation.
Her request to be spared jail time for the sake of her two young sons went unheeded by US District Court Judge Kenneth Karas, who said she had not made "a momentary lapse in judgment, a one-time mistake, but instead a repetition in an attempt to break the law."
Bonds, the former San Francisco Giants slugger who broke Hank Aaron's revered all-time home run record by belting his 756th career home run on August 7, has also steadfastly denied knowingly using banned drugs.
Bonds, who testified before a grand jury investigating BALCO in December of 2003, has pleaded not guilty to perjury and obstruction of justice charges.
Bonds won a victory in court last week, when US District Judge Susan Illston agreed that the four-count indictment against him was flawed. She ordered prosecutors to revise it, but declined to throw out the case against him.
The investigation of Clemens was launched after the seven-time Cy Young Award winner testified before Congress that he never took steroids or human growth hormone.
His testimony contradicted that of former trainer Brian McNamee, who told the committee that he personally injected Clemens with steroids and HGH.
The New York Times reported on Friday that federal officials investigating Clemens are widening their probe to include a weight loss clinic near Clemens' home in Houston, Texas, which advertised HGH on its website.
Clemens was initially linked to performance-enhancing drugs in the Mitchell Report on steroids in Major League Baseball, released in December.
Andy Pettitte and Chuck Knoblauch, both former teammates of Clemens, were also among the 86 current or former players named in the Mitchell report, and both have admitted using HGH.
Major League Baseball commissioned the Mitchell Report in part to demonstrate its ability, and willingness, to clean up the game.
However, not all US lawmakers are convinced pro sports chiefs will root out doping on their own.
Last week the commissioners of Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, National Football League and National Hockey League all appeared at a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection to discuss anti-doping legislation.
Subcommittee chairman Bobby Rush, a Democrat, said he believed the time had come to move forward "with legislation that seriously tackles drugs in sports."
- AFP/vm
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