HAVANA, Cuba (AFP) — Former Olympic 110m hurdles champion and world record-holder Dayron Robles “no longer wants to compete” and has withdrawn from Cuba’s track and field squad, a Cuban athletics official said yesterday.

“It’s official. Robles does not want to be part of the national athletics squad. He has asked to be retired and this has been agreed,” official Jorge Luis Sanchez told the official Juventud Rebelde newspaper.

“The boy does not want to compete anymore. We tried to convince him, but up to this time he has maintained his position and he is not part of our squad.”

If Robles does not change his mind then he would be ruled out of the World Championships which take place in Moscow in August.

Two weeks ago, Robles’s coach Santiago Antunez said that his athlete would not take part in the winter season, which prompted questions over the hurdler’s future.

“We don’t know if he will continue. It hasn’t yet been decided,” said Antunez.

Robles, the Olympic champion in 2008, was hurt in the final of the London Olympics in 2012.

America’s Aries Merritt, who won gold, then went on to take Robles’s world record, bettering the Cuban’s 12.87sec to 12.80sec in Brussels in September.