Olympic and world triple jump champion Yulimar Rojas ruled out of Paris 2024

Venezuelan athlete Yulimar Rojas, Olympic and world triple jump champion, has been ruled out of the 2024 Paris Olympics with an Achilles tendon injury.

Rojas suffered the injury during a training session in Spain and has since undergone surgery in Madrid.

28-year-old Rojas won the gold medal in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. She is also the current world record holder.

At the Tokyo Olympics, in her final attempt, Rojas came up with a jump of 15.67 metres, breaking the world and Olympic records. She would break her own record in 2022, extending it to 15.74m.

She was hoping to compete in the Paris Olympics and defend her gold medal, and join Cameroon's Françoise Mbango Etone as the only other woman with two golds in the triple jump event.

Rojas won the World Championships gold four times, winning the triple jump event in 2017, 2019, 2022 and 2023. She also won the World Indoor Championships three times.

"It is with great pain and sadness that I want to tell you that while I was training, I fell on the descent from a jump. I had intense pain that was diagnosed as an injury to my left Achilles tendon," Rojas wrote in an Instagram post, posting a photograph of herself lying on a hospital bed.

"My heart is broken and I want to say sorry that I will not be able to take part in Paris 2024," she added in her statement.

Rojas last competed in September 2023 when she won the Diamond League finals. She has been out of action since March this year.