FORMER Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Mark Hudspith has been forced to withdraw from the World Championships marathon in Canada next month.

The 31-year-old Morpeth Harrier, who was chosen to represent Great Britain in Edmonton after finishing second Briton in April's Flora London Marathon, has been unable to train for three weeks because of a foot injury.

Hudspith said: "I have decided to withdraw from the Great Britain team because there is no way I can get back to full race fitness in time for the World Championships.

"It is naturally a big disappointment to miss out but I don't want to go to Canada when I am not properly prepared - I don't want to let the team down and not do myself justice."

Hudspith had been chosen to travel to Canada, where he was third in the 1994 Commonwealth Games marathon, despite being 13 seconds outside the UK Athletics qualifying standard in London.

But with the World Championships being held from August 3-12 it was obvious that a troublesome foot injury would not clear up in time.

Hudspith was also unable to run his 5000m for Morpeth in their crucial British Athletics League Division Four match at Jarrow.

But he was at the Monkton Stadium to cheer on the Northumbrians to fourth place, easing fears of relegation for a second consecutive season. Morpeth went into the fixture with four points, the same as Havering and Telford, but they increased their total to nine points and now travel to Rugby for the final match next month confident of avoiding the bottom two positions.

Morpeth's main strength at Jarrow was in the track event, where they took maximum points in the steeplechase, 1500m and 5000m.

Richard Key put his team on the road to mid-table security when he won the A 3000m steeplechase in 9 mins 50.1 secs, while David Swinburne headed the B race (10:04.3).

Ian Hudspith prepared for this weekend's 5000m World Championships trial at Birmingham by winning the 1500m in a comfortable 3:51.3, leading all the way, and he was followed home by clubmate Tony O'Brien (3:53.7).

Morpeth demonstrated their strength again in the 5000m when Rob Holladay won in 15:11.5 and Terry Wall, who did most of the work at the front of the race, finished second in 15:15.8.

Multi-eventer Richard Hunter took part in six events for Morpeth, collecting 38 points, but was forced to miss the final event, the 4 x 400m relay with a hamstring strain.

Match result: 1 Luton 331.5 pts; 2 Crawley 315; 3 Rugby 311.5; 4 Morpeth 289; 5 Blackpool 259; 6 Havering 250; 7 Swindon 235; 8 Telford 179.

League placings after three fixtures: 1 Luton 23; 2 Crawley 16; 3 Blackpool 16; 4 Rugby 14; 5 Swindon 13; 6 Morpeth 9; 7 Havering 7; 8 Telford 5.