LONDON (AP):

Tim Montgomery started taking performance-enhancing drugs because he wanted to beat American sprint rival Maurice Greene and become the fastest man in the world, the former 100-metre world-record holder said in an interview with a British newspaper.

Montgomery, who also said he and former partner Marion Jones stored their steroids in the refrigerator "next to the vegetables", spoke to The Times newspaper from a federal prison in Alabama where he is serving time for bank fraud and drug dealing.

"Maurice got in my head real bad," Montgomery said in the interview, which was published yesterday. "I wanted everything that he had."

Montgomery criticises Greene for "clowning the other athletes". And it was after the 1999 World Championships in Seville, Spain, that Montgomery decided to do something.

Doping-tainted

"I would give anything to be the world's fastest," said Montgomery, who left coach Steve Riddick and joined doping-tainted coach Trevor Graham. "I wouldn't let anything get in my way."

Montgomery never tested positive for drugs, but he was linked to the BALCO doping investigation and has admitted that he doped before the 2000 Sydney Olympics. He retired after the ban was imposed in 2005.

Montgomery said he and Jones became an item in 2002 after spending several hours talking on a flight to Rome.

"Two hours later, we were alone in a hotel room together. Two weeks after that, we were crowned the world's fastest couple. And six months after that, she was pregnant," said Montgomery, who added that Jones could make herself cry for the cameras.

"Her best work was when she passed a lie detector test."

A short time after they got together, Montgomery set the world record in the 100 in Paris, running 9.78 seconds - one hundredth of a second faster than Greene's previous record but now wiped from the books.

Despite his success, Montgomery said Jones was the "prima donna" of Graham's group of track athletes and added that he was dating her for the public and not for himself.

"An athlete can be so consumed by being great," Montgomery said. "And we were too similar, we both wanted to achieve at any cost and you can't have two people like that together."