Powell pulls out of London Diamond League meeting

By Mike Rowbottom in London

August 12 - Asafa Powell has dropped out of the Aviva London Samsung Diamond League meeting at Crystal Palace this weekend.

The former world 100 metres record holder is still suffering with lower back injury which forced him to pull out of last Friday’s (August 6) scheduled 100m meeting in Stockholm with fellow Jamaican Usain Bolt and the United States’ Tyson Gay.

Powell, who had told reporters he was taking things "day by day" in his effort to recover, was forced to give the London meeting a miss after a further medical examination on Monday revealed he was still unfit.

The news, despite being half expected, will have come as a blow to the London Diamond League meeting, which had originally planned to have Bolt running before the Jamaican felt obliged to withdraw because of what he felt were punitive British tax laws.

Gay, who inflicted Bolt’s first defeat in two years in Stockholm, now has no serious opposition in the 100m.

Now that Bolt has announced he is not running for the rest of the season in order to recover from a similar back injury to Powell’s, it remains to be seen if the planned 100m showdown at the Brussels Diamond League meeting on August 27 will have a seriously competitive element.

Bolt and Powell remain the fastest men over 100m so far this season, having clocked 9.82sec, but for both men it has been a frustrating year.

Bolt was troubled by an Achilles tendon problem before succumbing to his latest difficulty.

Powell began the season injury-free - so much so that Gay highlighted him as the man to beat on the eve of their meeting in Gateshead.

But since then, Powell has suffered a problem with a groin injury, and his latest injury has undermined his progress still further.

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July 2010: Gay puts Powell in his place in Gateshead