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| European 1500m champion Arturo Casado of Spain. |
Spain's 2010 European Athletics Championships 1500m gold medallist Arturo Casado has admitted that it will be very difficult to defend his title in Helsinki owing to an edema - a build up of fluid – around the bones in his feet.
The 29-year-old runner from Madrid said on Monday that he had already missed 10 days of training and that he is unlikely to return to the track until the middle of next month.
'I've been told, I have to rest for another three or four weeks. Luckily, I stopped, because I had carried on, it could have turned into a fracture,' he said.
Casado is still keeping fit though, despite being unable to run. 'I do lots of swimming at the Blume (Madrid's high performance centre), magnet therapy and general fitness.
'I hope to be ready for the Olympic Games in London. I'll try to do the minimum standard before 8 July, which is the deadline.
'What is complicated are the Europeans in Helsinki, although they are not totally ruled out, especially if I'm only unable to train for three weeks; but it would be tight with the time,' he added. 'The first thing is to start running and then we'll see.'
Casado believes that his foot problems possibly arose because of over-training. 'I've been training a lot, 160 miles a week, and that means a lot of impact,' he reflected.
The 2012 European Athletics Championships will be in Helsinki, Finland, from 27 June - 1 July.