THIS year’s Great North Run winner Martin Lel has been forced to withdraw from Sunday’s ING New York City Marathon.

Lel, who won the marathon in 2003 and 2007, has failed to shake off a leg injury.

Lel, 31, won the Great North Run on September 20 and had appeared to put the hip injury problems that prompted his withdrawal from April’s London Marathon behind him.

However, a nagging problem surfaced in Lel’s last few days of preparation.

‘‘The good result of the half marathon made us believe it could be over but in the last day this problem came out again and he was forced to make this painful decision,’’ Lel’s manager Federico Rosa was quoted by race officials.

Lel’s withdrawal from the 40th running of the marathon leaves a men’s field still containing defending champion Marilson Gomes dos Santos of Brazil, two-time World Championship marathon winner Jaouad Gharib of Morocco, four-time Boston champion Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot of Kenya and Americans Ryan Hall and Meb Keflezighi, both of whom will also be vying for their national championship.

‘‘It is a blow to lose Martin Lel,’’ New York Road Runners president and CEO Mary Wittenberg said. ‘‘We’ll miss him.

Athletes of his calibre walk a fine line between being in winning form and being injured or sick.

“Understanding this, we ensure our fields run deep, and I am pleased our men’s field remains one of the best ever.’’ The women’s field will be led by world record holder and three-time race winner Paula Radcliffe, who is to be honoured as the New York City marathoner of the decade for the 2000s.