Jones out the back door

Jones finished her short Olympic campaign on a sour note when she left the Athens stadium with fifth place in the long jump and disqualification in the relay.

In the worst season of her career, in which she only qualified for one Olympic event but was named to run the 4x100 relay at the last minute, Jones was far from the carefree athlete who won five medals at the Sydney Games in her highly-publicised 'drive for five'.

But then in 2000, doping suspicions didn't surround her.

Constantly quizzed about her connection with the raided Balco laboratory, responsible for the banned steroid THG, and her choice of partners -- banned shot putter CJ Hunter and world 100 metres record-holder Tim Montgomery, who faces doping charges, the pressure has obviously gotten to Jones.

Having endured a difficult year, her performances on Friday, which included a long jump best of 6.85 metres and failure to complete a changeover in the 4x100 relay, were practically a fall from grace.

"It's been a rough one," Jones said tearfully.

She began the evening with a foul on her first attempt in the long jump. Managing 6.85 metres on her second try, the 28-year-old appeared to be finding her rhythm only to fail to better the effort.

Fouling again on her fifth jump, Jones wrapped up the competition with 6.63 metres -- well off Russian Lebedeva's winning leap of 7.07 metres.

It was a Russian sweep as Irina Simagina and Tatyana Kotova claimed the silver and bronze medals respectively, both in 7.05 metres, with Simagina winning on the count back.

Jones, the long jump bronze-medallist in Sydney four years ago, had to settle for fifth place.

With a chance to make amends in the 4x100 relay, Jones ran the second leg for the U.S., who confidently announced that they were capable of beating the world record (set by East Germany in 1985).

With Angela Williams starting off, the race began very positively for the Americans, who quickly led after the first leg. The problems, however, arose once Jones was ready to pass the baton to the third runner Lauryn Williams.

In fact, the hand-off never happened.

Despite screaming "Wait, wait, stop!" Jones could not reach Williams, the 100 metres silver-medallist. When she finally made contact on her fourth attempt, it was too late.

Jamaica went on to win the gold in 41.73 seconds, well clear of Russia (42.27) and France (42.54), with defending champions the Bahamas fourth.

"I thought Angela (Williams) ran a good leg and I thought I ran a good leg," said Jones.

"I just couldn't get the baton to Lauryn, it didn't happen today.

"I kept yelling, 'wait, stop, hold up' but after running 100 metres I was out of breath and I don't know if she could hear me.

"I exceeded my wildest dreams in a negative sense," she added. "We were looking for great things to happen, they didn't happen today.

"It's extremely disappointing, words can't put it into perspective."