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Malaika Mihambo, Olympic and world long jump champ, to miss world championships

Malaika Mihambo

FILED - 09 July 2023, Hesse, Kassel: Athletics: German Championships at the Auestadion. Long jump, final, women. Malaika Mihambo is sitting with ice on the ground. The Olympic long jump champion ends her season prematurely due to an injury and will not be able to defend her title at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest. The reason is a “small muscle fiber tear in the thigh,” her management announced Tuesday. Photo: Swen Pförtner/dpa (Photo by Swen Pförtner/picture alliance via Getty Images)

dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images

Malaika Mihambo, the Olympic and world gold medalist in the long jump, will miss next month’s world championships due to injury.

Mihambo, 29, suffered a small thigh muscle tear at her national championships earlier this month, according to the German track and field federation.

Mihambo and Venezuelan triple jumper Yulimar Rojas are the only track and field athletes to win the last three consecutive individual global titles outright — 2019 Worlds, Tokyo Olympics, 2022 Worlds.

Mihambo is tied for sixth in the world this year by best jump. Jamaican Ackelia Smith, a rising University of Texas junior, is the world No. 1 by one centimeter over American Tara Davis-Woodhall.

Of Jamaica’s 37 world championships gold medals, two have come in field events.