Olympic silver medallist Sunette Viljoen, bidding to boost her chances of world championship gold later this year, withdrew from the Diamond League meet in Eugene, Oregon, this weekend.
The women's javelin featured four of the top six from the Rio Games, including Olympic champion Sara Kolak of Croatia, 21, and the Czech Republic's third-placed Barbora Spotakova, the 35-year-old gold medallist at Beijing 2008 and London 2012.
The winner in the US, however, was Belarussian Tatsiana Khaladovich, 25, who ended fifth in Brazil last year. Her 66.0m was more than a metre beyond the 65.21m of runner-up Shiying Liu of China, 23.
Kolak ended third on 64.64m ahead of Spotakova in fourth (63.30m) and Australian veteran Kathryn Mitchell fifth (62.87m).
The 34-year-old Viljoen, with a season's best so far of 63.49m from the SA championships in Potchefstroom last month, will kick off her international season at the Josef Odlozil Memorial in the Czech Republic on Monday next week, the first of seven international meets planned before the world championships in London from August 4-13.
Her manager, Munya Maraire, said the jet lag and travel time to Eugene contributed to her decision to withdraw. He said her coach, Terseus Liebenberg, felt travelling for 25 hours one way and back again would be more detrimental to her preparations for her upcoming schedule.
"Viljoen will take almost 10 days to recover fully from travelling to Eugene when her next competition is in two weeks in Prague.
"This is the same meeting where Viljoen stunned current world record-holder Spotakova in her own backyard in 2010."
He added Viljoen was already in sufficiently good form to ensure that missing Eugene would not jeopardise her chances of making the Diamond League women's javelin final at the Weltklasse in Zurich on August 24.
Her first Diamond League meet will be in Lausanne, Switzerland, on July 6.
Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package. 