CHICAGO (AP):

Marion Jones said yesterday seeing the pain her family and friends endured after she admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs outweighed the impact of returning her Olympic medals.

The former Olympic and world athletics champion appeared on the American television talk programme 'The Oprah Winfrey Show,' her first interview since being sentenced last week to six months in prison for lying to investigators about doping and a cheque-fraud conspiracy.

"I want people to understand that, you know, everybody makes mistakes. ... I truly think that a person's character is determined by their admission of their mistakes and then beyond that, what do I do about it?" Jones said via satellite from Austin, Texas, where she lives. "How can I change the lives of people? How can I use my story to change the life of a young person?"

Winfrey pressed Jones on the repeated, impassioned denials she made over the years. "You knew at that time, you knew were lying, right?" Winfrey said.

"I made a mistake. I made the choice, at that time, to protect myself, to protect my family," Jones said. "And now I've paid the consequences dearly."

Jones said she hasn't told her four-year-old son yet that she's going to prison. She also has a younger son. She has until March 11 to surrender to authorities.

She admitted she was disappointed that she was not given a probation-only sentence, as she and her attorneys had sought.

"I put myself in a position to have somebody else determine my immediate future," she said. "I made that decision. I have to live with it, my family has to live with it. With the grace of God we'll get through it and come out even better at the other end."

The clear

One of the most celebrated female athletes in the world, Jones won three gold and two bronze medals at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. She also won the 200 metres and claimed a bronze in the 100 at the 2001 World Championships, which she also had to return. She won a total of three titles at the 1997 and 1999 worlds which she was allowed to keep.

After long denying she ever had used performance-enhancing drugs, Jones admitted last October she lied to U.S. government investigators in November 2003, acknowledging she took the designer steroid, 'the clear', from September 2000 to July 2001.

'The clear' has been linked to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, the lab at the center of the doping scandal that has also implicated several major American sports figures as well as international athletics champions such as Tim Montgomery.