ATHLETICS: Naoko Takahashi will not defend her Olympic marathon title in Athens later this year after she was left out of Japan's team for the Games.
The 31-year-old had left her fate in the hands of the Japan Amateur Athletics Federation (JAAF) after suffering a shock defeat in Tokyo last November, the first time she had been beaten since 1998.
That gamble backfired as JAAF officials selected Reiko Tosa in the third and final spot on their team alongside Mizuki Noguchi and Naoko Sakamoto following Tosa's victory in Nagoya at the weekend.
Takahashi, who won gold at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, finished runner-up in Tokyo in the first of three Athens qualifiers for Japanese athletes.
She did not run in Osaka in January - won by Sakamoto - or in Nagoya. Despite her bitter disappointment at being left out of the Olympic squad, Takahashi insisted she had no plans to quit.
Former high jump world champion Martin Buss of Germany will also miss this year's olympics because of a recurrent knee injury.
However, double world
cross country champion Kenenisa Bekele will defend his titles for a third time on March 20th-21st after being named in Ethiopia's team for Brussels alongside women's long-course gold medallist Werknesh
Kidane.
Bekele became the first man to win the long and short course titles in 2002 and repeated the feat in Lausanne last year as Ethiopia won four of the six individual gold medals.
