JOHANNESBURG, May 30- Olympic champion and world record holder David Rudisha is fighting to be fit for the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Birmingham on Sunday, June 7, after being forced out of the 600m showdown at Tuesday’s Ostrava Golden Spike.
The Kenyan superstar made a strong start and surged to the front but 100m into the race, he winced in pain, clutching his right thigh before limping to a stop as Poland’s Adam Kszczot clocked 1:16.04 to win the rarely competed race.
“Very unfortunate that I pulled my muscle after 100m. But it is not a serious injury,” tweeted Rudisha, who was looking to set a new world record in the little-run race.
“It`s just a thigh muscle spasm… not serious problem. With few days of good care I hope to be back in training,” Rudisha wrote on his Twitter and Facebook pages after the race in reassuring his fans his season had not come to a premature end as initially feared.
Speaking from his Iten training base, Rudisha’s head coach Brother Colm O’Connell said the 2011 World Champion was stepping up recovery to be fit for Birmingham and a decision would be made on Monday on whether he will feature in the fourth stop of the 2015 IAAF Diamond League meeting.
“We will make a decision on Monday, if the response is good, he will go for his race in Birmingham. He is doing light running under physio guidance. Thankfully, the injury was just muscle spasm that looked quite severe on television but as we have established, it was not too serious,” the coach, who said Rudisha is now in Germany, added.
Rudisha, 26, has struggled to return back to his best form after battling a nagging knee injury which forced him to miss the 2013 World Championships in Moscow, winning the Commonwealth Games silver last year, the first second medal of his staggering career.
His last memorable race was at the 2012 London Olympics when he stormed to a spectacular new world record of 1:40.91 in the 800m.
-SuperSport.com