Ashia Hansen celebrates after winning women's triple jump event at European Athletics Championships in Munich, 10 Aug 2002

Former world indoor triple-jump champion Ashia Hansen of Britain has announced her retirement after failing to recover from a knee injury in time for next month's Beijing Olympics.

The 36-year-old American-born Hansen had been expected to be a gold medal contender at the 2004 Athens Olympics.  But she missed those Games after suffering a knee injury at the 2004 European Cup final.

Hansen set the former indoor world record of 15.16 meters at the European Championships in 1998.  She had hoped to compete at the British Olympic trials in Birmingham this weekend, but decided she was not fit enough to do so.

Hansen said it had become clear to her that she could "no longer train through the pain of injury" as she used to.  She added that it was time to take the pressure off herself and that she had few complaints after the achievements in her career.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.