Triple Olympic champion Marion Jones is prepared to file a lawsuit if she is prevented from competing in the Athens Games because of information obtained in a U.S. Justice Department investigation into the illegal sale and use of steroids.
"IIf I make the Olympic team and I am held from the Olympic Games because of something somebody thought, you can pretty much bet there will be lawsuits," Jones said on Sunday, at a United States Olympic Committee media summit. "I don't have a problem saying that.
"I'm not just going to sit down and let someone or a group of people or organisation take away my livelihood because of a hunch, because of a thought, because of someone who is trying to show their power."
Last week the U.S. Senate, which has been looking into the use of performance enhancing drugs in sport, turned over to the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) findings of a Justice Department investigation into the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) believed to be at the heart of the steroid scandal.
As part of the investigation, several prominent Olympians, including Jones and her partner 100 metre world record holder Tim Montgomery, have been among those to testify before a federal grand jury.
The USOC is now braced to find out what was contained in the documents handed over earlier this month since the information could impact on the team it sends to Athens.
Under USADA and World Anti-Doping Agency rules, any athlete admitting to using performance enhancing drugs, or a "non-analytical positive," faces the same bans as an athlete who has tested positive even in the absence of a postive result.
Jones has maintained she has never used performance-enhancing drugs and says her name will cleared as information in the investigation becomes public.
"I think it is unfair," said Jones, who won five medals at the Sydney Olympics and is aiming for five more in Athens. "To keep an athlete out of an Olympic Games because of something that has not yet been tested for is totally unfair.
"USADA, if that's what they're doing, is not (taking) the correct approach."