THE LATEST in the aches, pains & eligibility departments. starting with the U.S.:
Josette Andrews held off on racing this season as she built fitness following a stress reaction.
Rio 1500 gold medalist Matthew Centrowitz withdrew from the Trials after a slow recovery from a hamstring injury left him unable to do the quality work he needed.
Paul Chelimo says he is done with track and will now focus on the marathon.
Steepler Val Constien says that she had COVID following her Olympic Trials success.
Ryan Crouser has dealt with a variety of physical challenges this season, most recently an elbow injury that required surgery. The WR holder timed the surgery for April, when he was already missing a month of training because of a pec injury.
Steepler Mason Ferlic missed the Trials because of a hamstring injury.
Marathoner Lindsay Flanagan has recovered from a fractured fibula and will be racing the Chicago Marathon.
Kyle Garland hurt his ankle in vault warm-ups and had to withdraw from the Trials decathlon on day 2.
Rio Olympic 800 finalist Kate Grace has announced her retirement, explaining, “I’ve always said I would keep going as long as I felt there was growth to be had, and for a while now I thought that would mean going through 2025. I had such a short build to this summer’s races, I thought I’d want to see what I could do again with a full year healthy. But something started to switch in Eugene. I got this very calm sense of finality, and that even if I can still blast some quick times, more growth will now come from other goals.”
Heptathlete Annie Kunz came to the Trials with a partial rupture of her plantar in her takeoff foot a month earlier. She fell twice in hurdle warmups and withdrew after completing that first event.
West Virginia’s Ceili McCabe redshirted so that she could concentrate on the Olympics. She made the Canadian team and PRed at 9:20.58. She is expected to return for her final year with the Mountaineers.
Christopher Morales Williams will not finish his NCAA eligibility at Georgia; he has signed with adidas.
Sports Illustrated reported that Athing Mu had a hamstring tear in May, and was on crutches while getting multiple PRP injections. She did workouts in the pool, and did not start running until mid-June.
Keturah Orji, 28, plans to retire at the end of the season. A 10-time U.S. Ranker in the triple jump, she has been No. 1 five times. She has Ranked 6 times in the long jump.
Arkansas’s Wayne Pinnock will skip his remaining college career, having signed a contract with Puma.
Though Jacious Sears scratched from the Trials due to her hamstring injury, she reportedly still has plans to compete in Europe later in the season.
Ackelia Smith will bypass her final year of NCAA eligibility with Texas to go pro. She has signed with Puma.
Walker Robyn Stevens has been recovering from long COVID: “For the fitness I was in, my body wasn’t responding. I had this deep sense of malaise. I didn’t recognize myself and some people were saying, ‘Oh, it’s because you’re older.’ And I said, ‘No, this is different.’”
Triple jump legend Christian Taylor has retired at age 34. In his career he won 6 global golds, two of them Olympic. Eight times he World Ranked No. 1.
Addy Wiley was dealing with food poisoning at the Olympic Trials.
Internationally Speaking…
Nigerian hurdler Tobi Amusan has been finally cleared by the CAS, which rejected appeals by WA and WADA on her whereabouts failures case.
Walker Éider Arévalo, Colombia’s ’17 World 20K champion, will miss the Games with a sacral stress fracture.
Mutaz Barshim, who shared the Olympic high jump gold with Gianmarco Tamberi in Tokyo, says that the Paris Games will be his final Olympics.
Jonathan Borlée announced his retirement at 36, after the news that injury would keep the Belgian out of what would have been his fifth Olympics.
British vaulter Holly Bradshaw missed her national champs with COVID.
Italy’s Andy Diaz started his season with an abbreviated approach to the triple jump because of an adductor injury.
Brazilian marathoner Daniel do Nascimento (2:04:51 NR) has been provisionally suspended after testing positive for three different steroids in an out-of-competition test.
World Indoor 400 champ Alexander Doom missed the Belgian championships while nursing a leg injury.
Simon Ehammer has decided to only compete in the Olympic long jump, even though he qualified in the decathlon as well.
Polish middle distance star Sofia Ennaoui has had Achilles surgery and will miss the rest of the season.
Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce withdrew from her last pre-Olympic test, the Lucerne 100, after “feeling something” during warmups.
Scratch British teen 800 phenomenon Phoebe Gill off your potential NCAA recruits list. She has signed a pro contract with Puma.
Zharnel Hughes was given a medical exemption from the British championships while he managed a hamstring injury.
Shericka Jackson pulled up in Székesfehérvár, but according to her physiotherapist, it was a cramp and not an injury.
Steepler Norah Jeruto was cleared by CAS after WA appealed to have her banned for four years because of abnormalities in her biological passport.
Swiss hurdler Ditaji Kambundji has missed two races because of hamstring issues.
Yomif Kejelcha, the Budapest silver medalist at 5000, has been replaced on the Ethiopian team by 17-year-old Biniam Mehary, the World Junior recordholder at 10,000 (26:37.93). Said Kejelcha, “I request the people and the government of my country to stand with me and oppose my oppression and help me get the right justice.”
Anna Kiełbasińska, 34, the ’23 Euro Indoor champion at 400, has retired after pulling up with an Achilles injury at the Polish champs.
German distance runner Konstanze Klosterhalfen missed her last chance to qualify for the Games due to a virus.
Brigid Kosgei, the ’21 silver medalist in the marathon, was replaced on the Kenyan team after expressing an “injury concern” to the team staff. Sharon Lokedi, this year’s Boston runner-up, will replace her.
Russian high jumper Mariya Lasitskene is currently sidelined by injury.
France’s Christophe Lemaitre, the ’16 Olympic bronze medalist at 200, has retired at 34.
Pierce LePage, the Budapest decathlon champion, will not be in Paris because he has not recovered from a herniated disc he suffered in April. He now says he will need surgery.
Patricia Mamona, the triple jump silver medalist in ’21, will miss Paris with a knee injury.
D. Prakash Manu, a World finalist in the men’sjavelin last summer, has been provisionally suspended after testing positive for a steroid at an April meet.
Decathlon WR holder Kevin Mayer suffered a “significant” hamstring tear at the Paris Diamond League meet. He says, “I spend my days in a hyperbaric chamber and I’m hooked up to an electrostimulation machine day and night, so that it heals faster, by doing little exercises of increasing intensity, always bearing in mind not to go too fast. I feel strong and determined to make it, knowing that it is very, very difficult and I have virtually no chance but I don’t have the right to give up now.”
Malaika Mihambo has recovered from a bout with COVID after the European Championships.
Shaunae Miller-Uibo, the ’21 Olympic champion at 400, had hoped to compete in Paris despite coming back from childbirth. However, an injury at the Bahamas Championships has stopped her.
Bulgarian triple jumper Aleksandra Nacheva had surgery after fracturing her fibula and tearing her ankle ligaments. She’s done for the year.
Washington alum Amy-Eloise Neale, a ’21 Olympian for Britain in the 5000, has announced that she is retiring from track racing to focus on the roads.
Britain’s Andrew Pozzi, the ’18 World Indoor hurdle champion, has retired at 32 following an ankle fracture.
Swedish long jumper Khaddi Sagnia, twice a World Ranker, will miss the Games. “I’ve had injury problems for a long time and still have problems with my knee. I feel that I need to take a longer break and let my body heal fully.”
Euro hurdle champ Cyrena Samba-Mayela missed the French Champs after picking up COVID while traveling from her U.S. training base.
Is Alex Schwazer finished? The ’08 Olympic 50K walk champion, finished with both his legal battles and his 8-year doping suspension, announced he would return to competition in July. He contested a 20,000m track race — now reported to be his last before retirement — but stopped after 14K, citing back problems.
San José State’s Jaden Smith (45.40 at 400 this year) has declared that he will be competing for Britain.
Chinese sprinter Bingtian Su will miss the Olympics with an unspecified injury.
Gianmarco Tamberi missed two meets because of a hamstring issue, diagnosed as “a significant edematous area of the biceps femoris probably due to a small myofascial lesion.” Said the defending Olympic high jump champion, “I’ve skipped two fundamental events to prepare better for the Olympics but this small stop will not stop me after all I’ve done for my big dream.”
Elaine Thompson-Herah, injured racing in New York, was forced to withdraw from the Jamaican Trials and cancel her season.
Vítězslav Veselý, the ’13 World champ in the javelin, has retired at 41.
A calf injury made world 400 champ Antonio Watson a DNF at the Jamaican Trials; he will miss the Games.
Jake Wightman missed the British Champs with a slight calf injury.
Former vault world champ Paweł Wojciechowski has retired at age 35. “I end up an unfulfilled athlete,” he said after failing to make the Polish team. A 3-time Olympian, he never made the final.
Let’s Try A New Country…
Former Texas A&M hurdler Emelia Chatfield (12.72) has been cleared to compete for Haiti and will race in Paris.
LSU alum Thelma Davies (11.01 PR) has been cleared to represent Liberia at the Olympics.
Doping Bans…
8 years — Gil Roberts (U.S., 400);
7 years — Lawrence Cherono (Kenya, marathon);
3 years — Lucy Karimi (Kenya, marathon);
2 years — Medhi Frère (France, marathon), Judith Jerubet (Kenya, marathon);
16 months — Thiago Braz (Brazil, PV). □