American Marion Jones is eligible to run at this weekend's World Athletics Final in Stuttgart after a backup doping test came up clean.
``If she asks the IAAF to compete, she can do so according to our rules,'' Helmut Digel, a vice-president of the sport's world governing body, said Thursday.
The ``B'' sample taken from the former Olympic champion did not detect the banned endurance enhancer EPO, her lawyers said Wednesday.
Jones tested positive for the blood-boosting hormone on June 23, after winning the 100 meters at U.S. nationals for her first sprint title since 2002.
She faced a minimum two-year ban, pending the result of the backup B test, conducted at the same UCLA lab using the same sample. That sample came back negative.
Digel said the results of the first test should not have been revealed until the B sample had been examined.
``Marion Jones has the right to be upset,'' said Digel, a German. ``We have to consider her as a clean athlete.''
The $3-million IAAF World Athletics Final runs Saturday and Sunday in Stuttgart.
Jones withdrew from a meet in Zurich, Switzerland, in August, hours before the first positive test became known. Until then, she had enjoyed a strong season, running the 100 in 10.91 seconds, her best time in five years.
Jones dominated track and field in the late 1990s. At the 2000 Sydney Games, she became the first woman to win five Olympic medals _ gold in the 100 metres, 200, 1,600 relay and bronze in the long jump and 400-meter relay.
