MOSCOW, (Reuters) – Former world pole vault champion Svetlana Feofanova will miss this month’s world athletics championships in Berlin with a leg injury.
“Unfortunately the injury does not allow me to compete at my best,” the 29-year-old Russian, who won the world title in Paris in 2003, was quoted as saying by local media yesterday.
Feofanova, who has been world and Olympic champion Yelena Isinbayeva’s main rival over the past decade, also made the podium at the 2001 and 2007 world championships as well as the 2004 and 2008 Olympics.
The Berlin world championships run from Aug. 15-23.
