Athletics: Malcolm's Budapest hopes hit by fresh injury
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Your support makes all the difference.Christian Malcolm may miss next weekend's IAAF World Indoor Championships in Budapest because of a leg injury. The former 200 metres silver medallist failed to finish over the distance at the Gaz de France meeting in Lievin on Saturday when he felt a pull in his right hamstring on the final bend of the race.
"I felt a sharp pain and erred on the side of caution," said the former world 100 and 200m junior champion, who had been confident of his chances next weekend. "Whether I'll be fit enough to compete, I don't know." Malcolm, who had to start his indoor season late because of a hamstring problem, added: "I can't believe this has happened. It was my other leg which was troubling me before."
Things appeared to be turning his way when he produced a winning run at last month's Norwich Union Grand Prix in Birmingham after having to drop out of the earlier World Indoor Trials and AAA Championships after aggravating an injury during the 60m.
There was a less than awesome start to the indoor season for the former world 100m record holder, Maurice Greene, who had intended to contest the world indoor 60m title which he won in Maebashi five years ago, but pulled out of the final of the USA Indoor Championships which serve as trials for Budapest.
Greene, who holds the world indoor record of 6.39sec, was timed at 6.61 as he finished third in the fastest of three heats, and then withdrew from the final because of a painful right hamstring. Shawn Crawford, a former world indoor champion, won the final in 6.47.
The president of UK Athletics, Lynn Davies, is backing a proposal to double the suspension period for athletes that test positive for drugs, but wants a lifetime Olympic ban lifted. Davies' views arrive at the end of a week which saw the European 100m champion, Dwain Chambers, banned for two years for producing a positive result for the steroid tetrahydrogestrinone in an out-of-competition test in Saarbrucken, Germany, last August.
The 25-year-old faces the prospect of two seasons on the sidelines and never competing in the Olympics again, under the British Olympic Association's lifetime ban policy, unless he appeals successfully.
But Davies believes a universal four-year ban would be the right punishment to deter drug-taking in the future. That view has been forwarded by UK Athletics to the IAAF, who will consider the issue at the world congress in Helsinki next year.
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