Magazine Ranks Jones 5th in Sprints for ’92

Senior Marion Jones of Thousand Oaks High has been ranked among the top five female sprinters in the country for the 1992 season by Track & Field News magazine.

Jones was ranked fifth in both the 100 and 200 meters after placing fourth in the 200 and fifth in the 100 in the 1992 U.S. Olympic trials. She also won her third consecutive state high school titles in the 100 and 200 last year.

This is the second year in a row that Jones has earned a top-10 U.S. ranking. She was 10th in the 100 and fifth in the 200 in 1991. Jones, 17, has signed a letter of intent to run track and play basketball for North Carolina.

Gwen Torrence, who placed fourth in the 1992 Olympic Games, Olympic champion Gail Devers, Evelyn Ashford and Carlette Guidry were the four sprinters ranked ahead of Jones in the 100. In the 200, Jones ranked behind Olympic champion Torrence, Guidry, Michelle Finn and Dannette Young.

Jones’ personal bests of 11.14 seconds in the 100 and 22.58 in the 200 ranked 16th in both events on the 1992 world performer list.

In other events, javelin thrower Donna Mayhew of Glendale and 1,500-meter runner Regina Jacobs of Oakland ranked first and second nationally in their respective events.

Mayhew, 32, had a season best of 206 feet 2 inches last year. Mayhew, a former Glendale College standout, won the Olympic trials and placed 12th in the Olympics.

Jacobs, 29, posted a season best of 4 minutes 3.72 seconds in winning the Olympic trials but she was hampered by illness at the Games and finished a disappointing 12th in a semifinal.

Jacobs, a 1981 graduate of the Argyll Academy (now Campbell Hall High), was ranked second behind PattiSue Plumer in the U.S. rankings. Plumer finished 10th in the 1,500 in the Olympics.