Thomas Barr forced to withdraw from Worlds due to injury

Thomas Barr has been forced to withdraw from the World Championships after suffering an injury in training.

On Friday, the Waterford athlete had been named in the initial 23-person Athletics Ireland squad for the event in Hungary on 19-27 August, but he will now miss out.

"Thomas Barr [Ferrybank AC] has been forced to withdraw from the upcoming World Athletics Championships in Budapest due to an injury incurred in training this week," said Athletics Ireland.

"The 31-year-old from Waterford had been due to compete in the 400m hurdles at the championships which commence in two weeks' time in Hungary.

"Twenty-two Irish athletes will still take to competition [potentially rising to 25 in the coming days] alongside over 2,000 athletes from 200 countries at the brand new 35,000-capacity National Athletics Stadium in Budapest.

"The squad is the largest that Ireland have ever selected for the prestigious event."

Phil Healy confirmed on Thursday that she was also withdrawing in order to recover "mentally and physically" for the Olympic Games.

The 28-year-old has said she is finishing her season now after an "extremely tough and testing 16 months" in which she attempted to deal with auto-immune disease.