At yesterday's Lotto Cross Cup event in Brussels, reigning world cross country champion Lornah Kiplagat was unable to finish the race, stopping after three of four laps in the women's 6 km race which was won by Belgium's Veerle Dejaeghere.
The Dutchwoman stopped because she felt a strain in her calf, not because of a knee or ankle injury which has also been reported.
"She started easy and ran very comfortable," wrote her husband and manager, Pieter Langerhorst, in an e-mail message to Race Results Weekly. "She felt great and wanted to start pushing the pace with 1 kilometer to go. Right before the moment she wanted to start pushing, she felt something in her calf and stopped immediately."
Kiplagat, who is scheduled to run the Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon on Jan. 18, was examined back at her hotel.
"It is probably a strained muscle and after talking to our physios, we decided to just ice it and give it two days rest," Langerhorst wrote.
The couple will now return to their Kenyan training base in Iten where Kiplagat will be examined and treated by physiotherapists Gerard Hartmann and Bert Borghans.
"Both are for Christmas at Lornah's trainings camp so that makes things easy," Langerhorst added.
Kiplagat is the top woman entered in Dubai, hoping to win the USD 250,000 first prize, the largest in all of marathon running. She is obviously concerned because it was a calf strain which prevented her from competing in last summer's IAAF World Championships in Athletics.
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