EUGENE, Oregon, May 31 – Olympic 800m champion and world record-holder David Rudisha pulled out of this weekend’s Prefontaine Classic Diamond League athletics meeting with a knee injury, organizers said.
An MRI scan performed on Wednesday in Eugene, Oregon revealed the injury, which Rudisha’s manager James Templeton told organizers was to the Kenyan athlete’s right knee.
“The scan showed bruising of the bone and underlying ligaments,” meet organizers said in a statement. “Efforts today to test out the knee during a light workout did not go well, and Rudisha has had to withdraw from the Prefontaine Classic 800m.”
Rudisha won the 800m at the Diamond League meeting in New York on Saturday in 1:45.14.
He put the unspectacular time down to the rainy weather, and said he was less concerned this season with chasing his world record of 1:40.91 than with defending his world title when Moscow hosts the World Championships on August 10-18.
Elsewhere, double Olympic gold medalist Mo Farah, still recovering from a stomach virus picked up after the Oxy High Performance meet a month ago, has requested a move from the 10000m on Friday night to the 5000m on Saturday.
Farah thus joins teammate Galen Rupp and a field that includes American record holder Bernard Lagat and Olympic bronze medalist Thomas Longosiwa.
The 10000m night still features world record holder Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia and six other athletes ranked in the top ten in the world despite the race being robbed a Farah-Kenenisa showdown.
-Additional reporting, LetsRun.com