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Geneva - World sports' top court CAS on Friday overturned a decision by the International Olympic Committee to strip the relay teammates of disgraced Marion Jones of their 2000 Olympic medals.
"The CAS panel has ruled that the United States' teams that competed in the women's 4x100m and 4x400m athletics relay events at the Sydney Games shall not be disqualified and the medals and diplomas awarded to the athletes shall not be returned to the IOC," said the Court of Arbitration for Sport in a statement.
The US 4x400m relay team won the gold medal and the 4x100m team came in third at the Sydney Summer Games.
But they were stripped of their medals after Jones was found to have used drugs.
Arbitrators said they had decided to reinstate their medals as there was no rule in force at the time of the 2000 Olympics that clearly allowed the IOC to annul a relay team's results if a member of the team was found to have committed a doping offence.
"The panel ... acknowledges that the outcome of this case may be unfair to the other relay teams that competed with no doped athletes helping their performance," said the CAS.
"However, such outcome exclusively depends on the rules enacted or not enacted by the IOC and by the IAAF at the time of the Sydney Olympic Games," it added.
"As a result, the panel is unanimously of the opinion that, on the basis of the IOC and IAAF rules applicable at the time of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, the appealed decision of the IOC executive board of 10 April 2008 is incorrect and must be set aside."
