Mulaudzi out of world champs

Johannesburg - Men's 800-meter world champion Mbulaeni Mulaudzi will not defend his title at the upcoming world championships because of a hamstring injury that will keep him out for the rest of the year.

South Africa's athletics federation said on Wednesday that Mulaudzi will miss this month's worlds in Daegu, South Korea after he failed to recover from a hamstring problem that was now affecting his lower back.

"I need to take this injury seriously so I can be ready for the Olympics next year," Mulaudzi said in a statement, adding he will sit out the rest of the season to allow him to fully recover for 2012.

Mulaudzi won the 800m title at the 2009 worlds in Berlin, but had been hampered by hamstring problems through most of this season.

The 30-year-old former world indoor and Commonwealth Games champion missed the South African nationals at the start of the season and had managed just one solid performance in 2011 - a second-place finish at the Diamond League meet in New York in June.

Mulaudzi's coach, JP van der Merwe, said the previous hamstring injury had flared up again and treatment had not worked.

The worlds start on August 27.

Mulaudzi's victory in Berlin was his first outdoor world title, but the achievement was overshadowed by fellow South African Caster Semenya, who won the women's 800 as a teenager and amid a storm of controversy over gender tests.