Athletics: No Olympics for ex-world champs Christine Ohuruogu, Teddy Tamgho

Ex-world champs Christine Ohuruogu (left) and Teddy Tamgho. PHOTOS: REUTERS, AFP

LONDON (REUTERS/AFP) - Former world and Olympic 400m champion Christine Ohuruogu withdrew from the British Olympic trials in Birmingham on Saturday because of illness.

"Sorry guys, won't be running today, I have been fighting a virus and not yet ready to resume racing," the 32-year-old said on Twitter.

The British Championships double as the trials for the Rio Games in August.

Ohuruogu won gold at the 2008 Beijing Games and silver four years ago in London. She was world champion in 2007 and 2013.

She finished seventh at the Diamond League meet in Birmingham on June 5, with compatriots Seren Bundy-Davies fourth and Anyika Onuora fifth.

In France, former world triple jump champion Teddy Tamgho was ruled out of the Aug 5-21 Rio Games on Saturday after breaking his leg at the French national trials, the country's athletics federation said.

The 27-year-old suffered the injury to his upper left leg in Angers where the French championships, which double up as the Olympic qualifiers, are taking place. It will take up to six months for the injury to heal, meaning he has no chance of making the Games.

"Again, it was a jump which could have gone to 18m+. But God is great, it's not over," tweeted the Frenchman who had to be stretchered off the track and into an ambulance.

Tamgho, who hit the sand heavily and screamed with pain, holding his knee, has been plagued by injury throughout his career. In 2011, he fractured his ankle, broke his left leg for a first time in 2013 and then suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon in Doha in May 2015.

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