While the debate about whether drug cheats should get second chances continues in Britain, the most powerful man in American athletics has pleaded with President Bush not to forgive Marion Jones. Douglas Logan, the chief executive of USA Track & Field, has delivered an open letter to the White House after reports that Jones had applied for a pardon.

Jones was sentenced to six months in jail in January for lying about her steroid use. She handed back her five Olympic medals and became a national pariah for her deceit. Many believe that Dwain Chambers, Britain's own drug cheat, should have been allowed to run at the Olympic Games, but Logan's extraordinary epistle highlights the hardening of the stance against drugs in the United States.

“Few things are more globally respected than the Olympic Games and to pardon one of the biggest frauds perpetuated on the Olympic Movement would be nothing less than thumbing our collective noses at the world,” he wrote.

“To reduce Ms Jones's sentence or pardon her would send a horrible message to young people who idolised her. When she came under scrutiny for doping, she taunted any who doubted her purity, talent and work ethic. Just as she had succeeded in duping us with her performances, she duped many people into giving her the benefit of the doubt.”

Merlene Ottey was one of those who suffered from Jones's cheating. She received the last of her record nine Olympic medals when Jones admitted to doping and returned her medals from the Sydney Games. Ottey was given the bronze for the 100metres, but her hopes of adding to her tally and competing in an unprecedented eighth Games ended when she failed by 0.28sec to gain the qualifying mark at a meeting in Slovenia last night. Ottey, who now runs for Slovenia, is 48 and first competed at the Olympics for her native Jamaica in Moscow in 1980.

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