Rio Olympic 400m hurdles champion Dalilah Muhammad will miss this week’s USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships due to a hamstring injury.
She received a waiver from USATF to accept her bye into July’s world championships as a defending world champion. Usually, reigning world and Diamond League season champions with byes into worlds still have compete in at least one round of nationals.
Muhammad, who took silver to Sydney McLaughlin in Tokyo in the second-fastest time in history, last raced May 21 and withdrew before a planned race June 12. She and McLaughlin last went head-to-head in Tokyo.
McLaughlin is entered at USATF Outdoors, where a top-three finish will clinch a spot at worlds. At the last worlds in 2019, McLaughlin took silver behind Muhammad.
USATF OUTDOORS: TV Schedule | Events To Watch
Previously, 2012 Olympic pole vault champion Jenn Suhr scratched out of nationals. Messages seeking comment have not been returned. Suhr’s husband and longtime coach, Rick, posted on Facebook two weeks ago that the 40-year-old’s career is “winding down.”
Suhr has competed in every outdoor nationals dating to 2006, according to Tilastopaja.org. She was fifth at last year’s Olympic Trials.
Jeff Henderson, the 2016 Olympic long jump champion, did not enter nationals due to injury.
“We decided that it was best to not compete in USATF Championships but to get ready for the two years coming up that are far more important,” Henderson wrote in an email.
LaShawn Merritt, the last U.S. man to win an Olympic flat sprint title (400m in 2008), will miss outdoor nationals, too. He was eliminated in last year’s Olympic Trials semifinals in the 200m and 400m and has not raced since.
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