The International Olympic Committee had been expected to rule on the medal changes — which could affect more than three dozen athletes — during its three-day executive board meeting that started today.

But board member Denis Oswald said the IOC wants more information from the BALCO steroid investigation before deciding whether to upgrade doping-tainted Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou to Jones' gold in the women's 100 meters.

Oswald said the IOC also would afford hearings to Jones' American relay teammates before deciding whether to strip them of their Sydney medals.

"We don't want to do it piece by piece," he said. "We want to wait until we have full information."

The IOC executive board is still expected to formally strip Jones of her medals Wednesday. However, final decisions on how to readjust those medals will probably take months, Oswald said.

Oswald, a Swiss lawyer, sits on the three-member IOC disciplinary commission investigating the Jones and BALCO case.

Jones won gold medals in the 100, 200 and 1,600-meter relay in Sydney, and bronze medals in the long jump and 400-meter relay. After years of denying drug use, she acknowledged in court in October that she started doping before the Sydney Olympics. She has returned her medals.

Last month, the International Association of Athletics Federations erased all of Jones' results dating to September 2000, and recommended that her eight relay teammates also be disqualified and lose their medals.

"The IAAF decided they would lose their medals and basically we are supposed to follow what they proposed," Oswald said. "The question is whether to hear the athletes. They have never been tested positive. They would just lose the medals because of Jones. We have to be careful to protect their rights."

The IOC disciplinary panel is seeking all the documents and names linked to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO. Jones and baseball slugger Barry Bonds are among the athletes caught up in the case.

The IOC wants to find out whether Thanou or any other Olympic athletes were involved.

"This is why we are requesting through different channels complete information in the BALCO affair," said IOC vice president Thomas Bach, a German lawyer who heads the panel. "We do not know finally who was involved, who may be involved. We need to be sure we have everyone who was involved on the screen."

Normally when an Olympic medalist is disqualified, the standings are adjusted so that the next-place finisher moves up and those below also go up a spot. However, there is reluctance among some IOC officials to upgrade Thanou because she was involved in a high-profile scandal at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

"If we upgrade her we would have to be sure," Oswald said.

One option under consideration is leaving the gold medal spot vacant.

"This is an open question all the time," Oswald said. "We have to study the legal basis and the flexibility we have."

Thanou and fellow Greek runner Kostas Kenteris failed to show up for drug tests on the eve of the games and claimed they were injured in a motorcycle accident. They were forced to pull out of the Olympics and were later banned for two years.

Without evidence that Thanou was guilty of any doping violation in Sydney, the IOC would need other reasons for not awarding her the gold.

In October, lawyers for Thanou, Kenteris and their former coach, Christos Tzekos, said investigations have found no evidence that the three were involved in BALCO and that Greek prosecutors had dropped a probe into the case.

The IOC is working with the U.S. Olympic Committee and the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency to get the full BALCO files.

"It's not easy because the investigation is still ongoing," Oswald said. "USADA is not free to produce all the documents received from the Department of Justice."

The IOC operates under an eight-year statute of limitations provision, a rule enacted by the World Anti-Doping Agency. The Sydney Olympics finished on Oct. 1, 2000, so the IOC will be under pressure to settle the issue before October 2008.

The next IOC board meeting is in Beijing in April.

"A statute of limitations is always open to interpretation," Bach said. "I'm not worried so much about that."

IOC president Jacques Rogge said last month that medal upgrades would not be "automatic," and that only athletes deemed to be "clean" would be bumped up.

The bronze medalist in the 100 in Sydney was Tanya Lawrence, with fellow Jamaican Merlene Ottey fourth.

In the 200, Pauline Davis-Thompson of the Bahamas took the silver behind Jones and now stands to move up to gold. Sri Lanka's Susanthika Jayasinghe was third and Jamaica's Beverly McDonald fourth.