Su Bingtian, dubbed Asia’s fastest man, announced yesterday that he will not be competing in the 2024 Paris Olympics due to health issues, multiple media outlets report.
The 34-year-old athlete made his name during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics when he became the first non-African sprinter to complete the 100 metre sprint in less than 10 seconds, achieving an Asian record of 9.83 seconds.
In a post published on Chinese social media platform Weibo today, Su addressed his withdrawal by stating that he was “regretful” that his “physical condition and performance could not meet the standard needed to participate in the Paris Olympics.”
The athlete said that in March of this year, he and fellow team members travelled to the US to train for the Olympics relay qualification, but found that he was not in a physically good condition.
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He also mentioned that he was currently undergoing treatment with a team of experts in Guangzhou and expressed confidence that he would make a recovery, stressing that “I don’t want to give up sprinting.”
Su had been hoping to join the upcoming Olympics after announcing last June that he would be withdrawing from all competitions for the rest of the year in order to recover and train for the Paris event.
At the time, he wrote on Weibo that “the accumulated injuries over the years and the decline in physical condition after the pandemic hampered my preparations this year.”
While Su’s Olympics dreams may be dashed, he has said in the past that he hopes to participate in the 2025 National Games, which will be jointly held by his home province of Guangdong, as well as by Macao and Hong Kong.
