Long-jump champion Rehm gives up on Olympic dream
Germany's paralympic long-jump champion Markus Rehm will not compete at the Olympics in Rio, he said on Friday, giving up on his dream just weeks before the Games begin.
The 27-year-old -- who lost his lower right leg in a wakeboarding accident as a 14-year-old -- had hoped to emulate the now-shamed Oscar Pistorius in becoming the second athlete to compete with a prosthesis at sport's quadrennial sporting showpiece.
However, he gave up on that hope after meeting Jean Gracia, secretary-general of the sport's governing body International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), on Friday.
Rehm will still compete at the Paralympics in Rio.
"Rehm confirmed he will not be seeking selection for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games," read an IAAF statement.
Both parties though are to work together towards changing the rules, which would allow athletes using prostheses to compete at the IAAF world championships with London next year being the target.
"The discussion was extremely constructive and positive with Markus Rehm agreeing to join the IAAF Working Group (Gracia is the chairman of the group), which will next meet after the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games this September, in which Rehm intends to compete," read the statement.
Rehm had been left in limbo after the IAAF Council met in Vienna last month with no vote taken about his situation. IAAF President Seb Coe said Rehm had yet to prove his prosthesis didn't give him an advantage.
A study published in May said it was unclear whether Rehm's carbon-fibre prosthesis gave him an edge.
The study, published by the renowned German sports university in Cologne, has said it is "difficult, if not impossible" to determine whether paralympic athletes get an advantage over the able-bodied when they compete with a prosthesis.
Rehm won the 2012 paralympic long-jump gold in London and set the world record of 8.40m last October.
Pistorius also attempted to participate in the 2008 Beijing Olympics but the IAAF ruled against him, judging that artificial legs gave an athlete an advantage.
Pistorius appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and was allowed to compete in the Olympics, where he ran in the 400m and 4x400m relay at the 2012 London Games.