Hurdles Champion Rawlinson Forced Out of Olympics

The world 400 metres hurdles champion Jana Rawlinson has been forced to withdraw from Australia's Olympic team because of a long-standing toe injury. Rawlinson, who won her second world championship title last year in Osaka just months after giving birth to her first child, returned to competition in Poland last week after the toe problem had kept her out for nine months. However, complications from the injury, including calf and Achilles ailments, have made her participation in Beijing impossible.

"I'm very upset because the Olympic Games has always been a dream of mine, but I'm trying to remain positive and I'm looking beyond the Olympics to other challenges," she said. "I haven't been able to train for more than two days straight over the past 26 weeks, so I'm not arrogant enough to think that on that basis I'd be able to compete at the Olympics. I can't remember the last time I was able to wake up in the morning first thing ... without being in pain."

This is second Olympic setback of Rawlinson's career. She finished fifth in Athens after a knee injury hampered her final preparations, just a year after winning her first world title in Paris.