Alexander Doom unable to defend world athletics indoor title
Belgian athlete Alexander Doom needs to skip the entire athletics indoor season and can thus not defend his world title in the 400m at the end of March in Nanjing, China. The 27-year-old is also unable to compete at the European Indoor Championships in early March, reported newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws. He still suffers too much from an injury to his adductor muscles.
Doom made history last year by becoming the first Belgian male athlete to take the world title in the 400m indoors. With the 4x400m relay team, he also took a second gold medal in Glasgow. But he will not be able to defend these world titles in Nanjing.
"We wanted to run at full speed, not at 80 per cent”
The Belgian athlete already struggled with his adductor muscles for a long time last season and because the injury got worse, he couldn’t finish his 400m semi-final at the Paris Olympics. That injury is still not entirely healed yet: Doom can train quite well, but cannot yet run at full speed through the bends. So he has to skip both the European Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands, in early March and the World Indoor Championships in Nanjing in late March.
“The pain is as good as gone,” explained his coach Koen Bellemans to sports channel Sporza. “But to get to the top level, we ran out of time. We wanted to run at full speed, not at 80 per cent.” Alexander Doom hopes to be ready to compete again by mid-April.
#FlandersNewsService | Belgian athlete Alexander Doom © BELGA PHOTO JASPER JACOBS
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