Rudisha pulls out of worlds due to quad strain

800m record holder David Rudisha said yesterday he was saddened and disappointed to have pulled out of the world athletics championships due to a quad muscle strain.

Rudisha, reigning Olympic and world champion, is the first and only person to run under one minute 41 seconds for the 800m. He would have been one of the star names at the Aug. 4-13 global showpiece event in London.

“It is obviously disappointing and I am saddened. It was (during) the time I was actually trying to engage more speed. In the process of doing that, I put my muscle under (more) intense stress than when doing normal mileage. I damaged my quad, and this saddens and disappoints me a lot,” the 28-year-old told Reuters, having announced his withdrawal on Twitter earlier in the day.

Rudisha won his first 800m world title in Daegu in 2011, a year before his worldrecord performance at the Olympics in the same London Stadium where the world championships are being held.

After suffering the injury, Rudisha said that the severity of the grade one strain was realised only when he went for an MRI scan on Monday.

“We thought it was going to take a few days before recovery. It’s taking longer. We have been trying to do treatment and physio and everything and the problem was still persisting. Today we went for an MRI scan, they found that fluid was coming out of the muscle,” he said. – Reuters