The International Olympic Committee’s executive board recently disqualified the U.S. 4 x 100 and 4 x 400 relay teams from the 2000 Olympic Games, stripping the former team of its bronze medal and the latter squad of its gold medal.

The relay teams were disqualified because of team member Marion Jones’ admitted use of steroids prior to the Sydney Games. She had previously been stripped of the three gold and two bronze medals she’d won in 2000, including her two relay medals. She returned her medals to the IOC last year.

Now the IOC wants Jones’ relay teammates to return their medals as well. The U.S. Olympic Committee is already on record stating that the relay results were tainted and that all relay members should return their medals. Team members have hired an attorney and are expected to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The questions here are difficult. Should the honest American runners be punished for the sins of their teammate? Of course not. At the same time, if the U.S. relay teams retain their positions, wouldn’t that punish their defeated opponents, runners who, as far as we know, did abide by the rules?

The problem is, there’s no way to know what the relay results would’ve been had Jones not run. She was clearly the fastest Olympic women’s sprinter in 2000, having won the 100- and 200-meter races. But relays have other variables besides pure speed, most notably the efficiency of the baton passes.

The IOC should, therefore, take a page from its own book and raise up America’s 2000 competitors without stripping the honest Americans of their medals. In 1982, when the IOC decided that Jim Thorpe was unfairly stripped of his 1912 decathlon gold medal, the organization made him co-champion with Hugo Wieslander, rather than dropping the Swede to second place, even though Thorpe defeated Wieslander by almost 700 points.

Likewise, the IOC should make Jamaica the co-champion in the 4 x 400 for 2000 and award its team members with gold medals. In the 4 x 100, the fourth-place French team should be awarded bronze medals. The non-cheating U.S. relay team members should then be permitted to retain their medals.