News17 Jul 2013


Reigning champions Blake and Rudisha out of World Championships

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Yohan Blake celebrates winning the men's 100m gold medal in Daegu (© Getty Images)

Yohan Blake and David Rudisha will not defend their titles at the IAAF World Championships in Moscow next month as both athletes are injured.

Blake, who won the 100m gold medal in Daegu two years ago, has been battling with a hamstring injury since April.

He did not compete at the Jamaican Championships, but as the defending World champion he had the benefit of a wildcard entry for Moscow. However, he recently realised that his injury would not have sufficiently healed in time to compete at the World Championships.

“This decision was made after continual assessment and re-evaluations since his withdrawal from the Jamaican Senior Championships,” said Blake’s manager Cubie Seegobin.

“Yohan has made vast improvement, although the injury sustained in April of this year has prevented him from attaining the necessary fitness levels that we have grown accustomed to seeing in his competition performances.”

Rudisha, meanwhile, has been out of action since May when he felt pain in his knee on his way to winning the 800m at the New York Grand Prix.

Winner of the 800m at the 2011 World Championships, Rudisha will not be present in Moscow after his coach, Colm O’Connell, decided not to rush Rudisha’s recovery.

“Doctors in Germany said it may take three weeks for him to recover and we thought he would have seven weeks of training,” said O’Connell.

“We held back hoping for improvement, and he has improved quite a lot, but we didn’t want to do a crash course between now and the World Championships, which may aggravate the injury.”

IAAF

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