BEIJING - American Deena Kastor pulled out of the women's Olympic marathon early in the race this morning with a foot injury.
Kastor, the top US runner in the field, dropped to one knee and held her right foot at about the 5-kilometer (3.1-mile) mark. She got up and tried to walk it off, but dropped back down again and was forced to give up.
"I felt a pop in my foot. I couldn't stand on it," Kastor said. "I didn't expect to be finishing the marathon on a bus."
She said the foot had been sore for the past week.
"I thought it was just tendons, they get hypersensitive leading up to marathon," she said. "I was icing it this week. It didn't affect how I was training."
The 35-year-old Kastor moved from eighth to third in the closing stages of the marathon in Athens in 2004 to win the United States' first Olympic marathon medal since 1984.
Another American, Magda Lewy, also pulled out of the race.
"I hurt my knee a few days ago," she said. "I just can't bend it, and it got worse and worse."
