French superstar decathlete Kevin Mayer pulled out of the world championships in Budapest on Friday due to injury.
The 31-year-old, who claimed the decathlon title for a second time in Eugene at last year's championships, withdrew after completing the 100m and the long jump.
"I've been nursing a little injury on my achilles most of the season," said Mayer.
"It was OK until I was doing some training for the 400m and it started to feel really bad.
"And since then it's been a lot of physio sessions to give me a chance to be in Budapest. But I've had to stop before the injury gets worse."
Mayer's decision to depart in order to tend his left leg further blights a depressing world championships for French national pride.
Athletes from the country - which hosts the Olympics next year - have failed to collect a single medal at the National Athletics Centre. That drought will continue until Saturday with no French competitors featuring in the four finals on Friday night.
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Mayer announced his promise when he won the world junior decathlon title in 2010. He followed that with the European junior crown in 2011. In his first Olympics in 2012, he finished in 15th.
However, silver came at the 2016 Olympics in Rio followed by a first world title in London in 2017.
In 2019 while defending his crown at the Doha world championships, Mayer, was in the lead after seven events when he withdrew just before the pole valut citing a problem with his achilles.
After another silver at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Mayer regained the world crown and had been among the favourites in Budapest.
"Of course I'm disappointed," Mayer lamented. "I love this sport. I love training and I love the competition but I didn't want to be in a bad way going into an Olympic year.
"And when I felt that I couldn't really do what I wanted to do in the long jump and the achilles was getting more and more painful, me and my coach decided that we should stop and prepare for what really matters which is next year's Olympics in Paris."
After three of the decathlon's 10 events, Leo Neugebauer led the field. The 23-year-old from Germany was 68 points in front of Lindon Victor from Grenada and 76 points ahead of the Canadian Pierce Lepage.
