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Diagana will decide on Sunday
SYDNEY, Sept 14 (AFP) - France's 1997 400m hurdle world champion Stephane Diagana, who has been troubled with a tendinitis problem in the right knee, said Thursday that he would decide on Sunday whether to take part in the Olympic Games. "I will decide on Sunday depending on how my final training sessions go," Diagana told AFP from his training camp in Perth. "It's not an easy situation but I will not take a half-baked decision." The 31-year-old has had injury problems since returning from a winter camp in San Diego, California at the turn of the year. First he had back problems, then abdominal pains before the current tendinitis problem flared up. Diagana, silver medallist in the Seville world championships in 1999, has only competed in one important 400m at the Stade de France, Paris meeting on June 23, although he posted a creditable time of 48.70sec. However, he decided to fly to Austrlia with his coach Fernand Urtebise and in Perth he is working alongside two 400m specialists Ibrahima Wade and Marc Foucan. "There has been some sort of a recovery but since we have been working harder the pain has come back," said Urtebise. "It's very difficult even if Stephane is not showing it." Should Diagana withdraw it would be the second time he had been forced out of the Olympics, having earlier missed the Atlanta Games through injury. He did compete in the Barcelona Games in 1992 when he finished fourth.
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