Merritt Out of 400 With Injury

Jed Jacobsohn for The New York TimesLaShawn Merritt iced his injury after pulling up in the first round of the 400 meters.

LONDON — LaShawn Merritt, the reigning Olympic champion in the 400 meters who had made a comeback from an unusual doping suspension, pulled up with a hamstring injury Saturday in a preliminary heat.
A few weeks before coming to London for the Summer Games, Merritt injured his hamstring at a meet in Monaco, putting his Olympic standing in doubt. Less than halfway into his race here, he slowed and eventually pulled off to the side of the track as the other runners sped past.
“Obviously this is the Olympic Games, so you’re going to do all of the things to get healthy,” Merritt said. “It is feeling a lot better, a whole lot better. I feel like the strength is there. But when I really went for it, I could feel it.
“I still have some more time before the relay comes up, but if I go out and really hit it and practice and I still feel it, then obviously I’ll let somebody else run it.
“It’s not the end of the world, and the Olympics will come around again.”
Merritt, from Portsmouth, Va., was considered a strong contender for gold here in the 400. He earned a silver medal in the event at the 2011 world championships, after serving the doping suspension.
Three times from October 2009 to January 2010, he tested positive for steroid derivatives called DHEA and pregnenolone. But the substances were not intended to enhance athletic performance. They were contained instead in a male-enhancement product called ExtenZe, bought over the counter from a convenience store.
Instead of being suspended for 24 months, the maximum penalty for first offenders in steroid cases, Merritt was barred from competition for 21 months, ending in late July 2011. This allowed him to compete weeks later at the world championships in Daegu, South Korea.