Olympic champion Xing Huina will not defend her women's 10,000 metres title at the Beijing Olympics because of a leg injury, the Chinese Athletics Association confirmed yesterday.

The 24-year-old Shandong native would not take part in this week's China Open Athletics meeting at Beijing's "Bird's Nest" National Stadium, her last chance of qualifying for the August 8-24 Olympics, a CAA spokeswoman said.

"A persistent leg muscle injury has been affecting her training ... therefore she has had to pull out of the test event, and definitely the Olympics too," Wu Yong, director of the Shandong Provincial Athletics Centre, told Hebei newspaper Yanzhao Metropolis Daily on Sunday.

Xing, who runs with a distinctive shuffling gait, surprised even herself by sprinting past Ethiopians Ejegayehu Dibaba and Derartu Tulu down the home straight to win the 10,000 metres in Athens.

After missing last year's world championships in Osaka because of the long-standing injury, Xing moved to the US in January to train with Bernard Lagat's Chinese-born coach James Li.

(Agencies via Shanghai Daily May 20, 2008)