Olympics-Brazilian marathon runner De Lima set to miss Beijing

By Brian Homewood

RIO DE JANEIRO, May 7 (Reuters) - Vanderlei de Lima, the Brazilian runner who was famously attacked by a spectator while leading the marathon at the 2004 Olympics, is set to miss the Beijing Games because of injury, his trainer said Wednesday.

De Lima, who went on to win the bronze medal in Athens, has been forced to pull out of Sunday's Prague marathon, his last chance to qualify, because of a nagging injury in the back of his left thigh.

"Although he has partly recovered, he's not in condition to run a high performance race," Ricardo D'Angelo told Brazilian media.

"Vanderlei is very upset, because he had a bronze medal to defend. A piece of news like this makes an athlete sad but we're going to look ahead."

De Lima, 38, became an instant celebrity in Brazil after the incident in 2004.

The rank outsider was leading with around six kilometres to run when former Irish priest Cornelius Horan ran across the course and bundled him into the crowd.

De Lima managed to struggle free after spectator Polyvios Kossivas, who also became a celebrity in Brazil, intervened.

Despite losing around 20 seconds, De Lima managed to go on and win a bronze medal behind Italian Stefano Baldini, doing his now famous aeroplane celebration down the finishing straight and winning a standing ovation in one of the most moving moments of the Games.

Horan was given a 12-month suspended prison sentence and fined 3,000 euros.

De Lima has run fast enough to qualify for the games but Brazil has only three places in the marathon and they have already been taken by Marilson Gomes, Jose Teles and Franck Caldeira.

Caldeira's time of 2 hours 12.32 minutes is only 21 seconds ahead of De Lima.

Prague would have been his last chance to move into the top three.

D'Angelo said that De Lima's only hope would be for one of the top three to drop out.

"Of course, we don't want anything bad to happen to the runners who are ahead of him but the list is open until June or July," D'Angelo said.

(Editing by Ossian Shine)