The 2004 Olympic 800m champion,Yury Borzakovsky of Russia, will miss the World Championships in Moscow.
"Borzakovsky has recently caught a cold and had a fever for almost four days," Russia's athletic federation president Valentin Maslakov said on Wednesday.
"He told me that he thinks he'll be unable to produce a classy performance and decided to withdraw from competing at his home world championships." Maslakov said.
The 32 year old Borzakovskiy who won bronze at the last World championships in Daegu insisted that he was not planning on retiring at the end of this year.