ESPN Track and Field

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Marion Jones' coach said he had received a text message from the former Olympic champion telling him traces of erythropoietin had been found in her failed drug test at June's U.S. championships.

"She said I have got some traces of EPO," Steve Riddick told Reuters in a telephone call on Saturday from his Norfolk, Va., home.

"I started laughing, but she said she was serious."

Jones hurriedly withdrew from the Zurich Golden League meet Friday and returned to the United States.

A source later told Reuters that Jones failed an initial drug test at the U.S. championships in Indianapolis.

Jones has never previously failed a doping test and has always denied taking performance-enhancing drugs.

If her "B" or second sample is positive and Jones does not clear her name in an arbitration hearing, the 30-year-old would face a two-year ban from the sport.

According to multiple media reports citing sources familiar with the case, Jones' "B" sample is scheduled to be tested on Sept. 6.

Riddick, who has worked with Jones for the past two years, said he was sure the "B" sample would be negative.

"I would stake my life on it she did not take EPO," he said.

According to a report in USA Today, there are more discrepancies between "A" and "B" EPO test samples than any other substance, making the "B" test results not as much as a foregone conclusion as they were in the case of American cyclist Floyd Landis.

Charles Yesalis, a doping expert and recently retired Penn State professor, said sprinters use EPO to expand their endurance during training. EPO increases the number of oxygen-carrying red blood cells

"If you train harder, during that 10-plus seconds you will perform better," he said, adding there is disagreement in the scientific community over whether EPO does sprinters any good.

Jones had been making a comeback in the sport after giving birth in 2003 and won the 100 meters at the U.S. championships on the day she was tested.

Riddick wondered why any 100 runner would take EPO.

"It don't make no sense unless she wanted to commit public suicide," Riddick said of Jones, who won five medals at the 2000 Olympics, three of them gold.

He also raised the possibility of a mix-up in her sample.

Neither the United States Anti-Doping Agency nor the U.S. Olympic Committee would comment on Jones' test.

Jones' general counsel denied she had used banned drugs.

"Marion Jones has always been clear, she has never taken performance-enhancing substances, not now, not ever," Rich Nichols said in a statement to Reuters.

However, Jones has been under scrutiny by the USADA since being linked to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative scandal in 2003.

The man whose laboratory sparked the BALCO scandal said he stood behind comments he had made about seeing Jones use banned drugs.

"I have always told the truth regarding my relationship with Marion Jones," BALCO founder Victor Conte said in an e-mail to Reuters on Saturday.

At the 2000 Sydney Games, Jones became the first woman to win five Olympic medals in track and field. Jones, who trained with Trevor Graham at the time, won gold in the 100, 200 and 1,600 relay and bronze in the long jump and 400 relay.

Since then, however, Jones, one of several athletes who testified to the federal grand jury investigating BALCO in 2003, has been dogged by doping suspicions.

Her ex-husband, C.J. Hunter, and Conte have both said she had used banned substances, allegations she vehemently denied.

In a 2004 article in ESPN The Magazine, Conte alleged that "I started providing her with insulin, growth hormone, EPO and 'the clear,' as well as nutritional supplements," before the Sydney Olympics. He also described an April 2001 meeting in a California hotel room where he helped her inject human growth hormone.

Jones denied the allegations and filed a $25 million defamation lawsuit against Conte that was settled this year. Terms of the settlement were not announced.

Former coach Graham is now under investigation by track and field's ruling body and the USADA. He is the coach of Olympic and world 100-meter champion Justin Gatlin, who faces a lifetime ban for his failed drug test. Several other athletes coached by Graham have been suspended for doping.

At the 2004 Athens Olympics, Graham confirmed he was the one who sent a vial of the designer steroid THG, also known as "the clear," to the USADA, telling the agency that this was the drug of choice by some elite athletes at the time. BALCO was later confirmed as the source of THG.

In December 2005, sprinter Tim Montgomery, the father of Jones' son, retired from the sport after he was banned for two years for doping violations. He never tested positive but was punished based on information gathered in the BALCO probe. Earlier this year, he and Riddick were indicted on bank fraud and money laundering charges. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Jones was linked to the case when prosecutors revealed that a $25,000 check from the ring was deposited in one of her acounts. She was not charged with any wrongdoing.

Information from Reuters and The Associated Press was used in this report.