Morgan Hamm’s injury forces his withdrawal

The U.S. men’s gymnastics team now has no one with Olympic experience.

BEIJING (AP) — Morgan Hamm’s eyes were red, his voice shaky.

The bone spurs digging into his left leg made it impossible for him to tumble, and giving up his spot on the U.S. men’s gymnastics team was the right thing to do — the only thing to do. That didn’t make it hurt any less.

Hamm withdrew Thursday, two days before competition begins. He aggravated a chronic injury in his left ankle during training in Beijing, and it never responded to treatment. He clearly struggled on floor exercise during the men’s training session Wednesday, and it wasn’t any better Thursday.

“This has been an extremely hard decision for me to make. I’ve given everything I can to be ready to compete at this Olympic Games,” Hamm said. “It’s best for me to step down and have another athlete fill my position. This is something for me that’s very tough because it’s end of my career, and it’s not the way I had planned it.”

Nothing about these Olympics has gone the way Hamm and his twin brother, Paul, planned it. Not for the Americans, either.

Paul Hamm, the reigning Olympic champion, had to withdraw on July 28 because he wasn’t going to be healthy enough to compete in Beijing. Besides persistent pain from the right hand he broke two months ago, he has a strained left rotator cuff.

Morgan Hamm tore a muscle in his chest in early October, an injury that required a five-month rehab. He was able to return, but the injured ankle continued to give him trouble, and he aggravated it after he got to Beijing. Bone spurs from his ankle dig into his tibia, producing “extreme” pain.

When he wasn’t able to do his floor routine during podium training, he met with USA Gymnastics staff to discuss their options.

Hamm had tried taping, ultrasound and other therapies to treat the injury early on. When those didn’t work, his doctor gave him an injection of a glucocorticosteroid, a cortisone-like anti-inflammatory, on May 2 in hopes of reducing the swelling and inflammation. That resulted in a positive doping test at nationals; the drug is allowed if an athlete gets a therapeutic use exemption, which he failed to do.

The Hamms’ withdrawals mean the Americans, once considered favorites to return to the medals podium, now have no one with Olympic experience.