SALVO, North Carolina - Marion Jones's prison sentence for lying about steroid use proves how effective cooperation between government and anti-doping agencies can be in the fight against drugs in sport, officials and coaches say.

"Federal investigators got Marion," International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) spokesman Nick Davies told Reuters after Jones, once the world's leading female athlete, was sentenced to six months in prison on Friday.

"There needs to be a coordinated approach," Davies said in a telephone interview from IAAF headquarters in Monte Carlo.

"The only way to win this war is to have collaboration between sport bodies and government authorities."

Jones passed 160 doping tests before finally admitting in a U.S. court last year she had taken the banned substance tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), known as "the clear," before the 2000 Olympics.

The admission, after years of denial, came as part of a plea bargain agreement with prosecutors, who charged the American sprinter with lying about her steroid use and knowledge of a fraud case involving her former boyfriend, disgraced world record holder Tim Montgomery.

She has since been stripped of her five Sydney Olympics medals, had her results since September 2000 annulled, been banned from the sport for two years and retired from athletics.

"Marion Jones's case shows the increasing importance of the cooperation of the sports movement and governments, mainly through enforcement agencies, in the fight against doping in sport," World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) director general David Howman said in a statement.

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