Reigning 100m world champion Yohan Blake has withdrawn from next month’s World Athletics Championships in Moscow with a hamstring injury.
The 23-year-old Jamaican has been bothered by a sore hamstring since April when he competed in the Utech Classic in Jamaica.
“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 performances,” Blake’s agent Cubie Seegobin said on Tuesday.
Photo: Reuters
The injury also forced him to miss last month’s Jamaican trials.
Blake’s withdrawal not only robs the event of its defending sprint champion, but it adds to the list of marquee performers who have been ruled out of the event, including some for failing doping tests.
On Sunday, US sprinter Tyson Gay, former 100m world record holder Asafa Powell and Olympic gold medalist Sherone Simpson of Jamaica said they had tested positive for banned substances.
Blake has a personal best of the 9.69 seconds in the 100m making him the joint second-fastest man ever behind Jamaican teammate Usain Bolt. Gay has also run a 9.69 seconds.
Blake finished second in the 2011 Daegu World Championships, but was awarded the gold after organizers disqualified Bolt.
Defending champion Bolt was disqualified after he jumped out of the blocks too early.
Blake captured two silvers in his first Olympics at last year’s London Games in the 100m and 200m. He won gold in the 4x100m relay.
He set a personal best of 9.69 seconds in the 100m at the Athletissima Diamond League event in Lausanne, Switzerland, in August last year.
That came 11 months after he ran a personal best of 19.26 seconds in the 200m at a meeting in Brussels, Belgium.
Bologna on Thursday advanced past Empoli to reach their first Coppa Italia final in more than half a century. Thijs Dallinga’s 87th-minute header earned Bologna a 2-1 win and his side advanced 5-1 on aggregate. Giovanni Fabbian opened the scoring for Bologna with a header seven minutes in. Then Viktor Kovalenko equalized for Empoli in the 30th minute by turning in a rebound to finish off a counterattack. Bologna won the first leg 3-0. In the May 14 final in Rome, Bologna are to face AC Milan, who eliminated city rivals Inter 4-1 on aggregate following a 3-0 win on Wednesday. Bologna last reached the
If the Wild finally break through and win their first playoff series in a decade, Minnesota’s top line likely will be the reason. They were all over the Golden Knights through the first two games of their NHL Western Conference quarter-finals series, which was 1-1 going back to Minnesota for Game 3 today. The Wild tied the series with a 5-2 win on Tuesday. Matt Boldy had three goals and an assist in the first two games, while Kirill Kaprizov produced two goals and three assists. Joel Eriksson Ek, who centers the line, has yet to get on the scoresheet. “I think the biggest
From a commemorative jersey to a stadium in his name, Argentine soccer organizers are planning a slew of tributes to their late “Captain” Pope Francis, eulogized as the ultimate team player. Tributes to the Argentine pontiff, a lifelong lover of the game, who died on Monday at the age of 88, have been peppered with soccer metaphors in his homeland. “Francisco. What a player,” the Argentine Football Federation (AFA) said, describing the first pope from Latin America and the southern hemisphere as a generational talent who “never hogged the ball” and who showed the world “the importance of having an Argentine captain,
Noelvi Marte on Sunday had seven RBIs and hit his first career grand slam with a drive off infielder Jorge Mateo, while Austin Wynn had a career-high six RBIs as the Cincinnati Reds scored their most runs in 26 years in a 24-2 rout of the Baltimore Orioles. Marte finished with five hits, including his eighth-inning homer off Mateo. Wynn hit a three-run homer in the ninth off catcher Gary Sanchez. Cincinnati scored its most runs since a 24-12 win against the Colorado Rockies on May 19, 1999, and finished with 25 hits. Baltimore allowed its most runs since a 30-3 loss to