WASHINGTON, July 19: Triple Olympic champion Marion Jones is back on the track, training for the 2004 Olympics barely two weeks after giving birth to her first child, Tim Montgomery Jnr.
Charlie Wells, agent for the sprint speedster, told AFP here Friday that Jones went back to training on the track Monday.
“She got the release from the doctors. She started Monday,” Wells said. “She’s in shape. You could never tell she’s got a baby.”
Had she gotten pregnant two months earlier, Jones might be training now for next month’s World Championships in Paris.
“If she had had the baby in April, she would have been able to run at the Worlds,” Wells said. “She’s jogging and lifting weights. She stopped the weights only three days before giving birth.”
Jones has been running with world 100 meters record holder Tim Montgomery, who is the father of the baby, and new coach Dan Pfaff at the couple’s home base in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Pfaff, who used to guide 1996 Olympic 100m champion Donovan Bailey, was recruited to coach the world’s fastest couple earlier this month after they were forced to cut ties with disgraced Canadian coach Charlie Francis.
Wells said that despite pulling out of races to return to the United States following the baby’s birth, Montgomery was ready for the European season and would be in shape in time for the Worlds which start on August 23.
He is planning to run in London on August 8 and negotiating for possible appearances at meets in Stockholm on August 5 and the Golden League meeting in Zurich on August 15.
“Tim is ready,” Wells said. “He has a whole month (of training) under his belt.”—AFP