Hooker crashes out

After two injury-ravaged years, Hooker only started his season at the end of July and his lack of preparation showed as he failed to get into the air in three attempts at clearing 5.50 metres to bring a premature end to his title defence.

"My body was fine, mentally it wasn't there," he said. "I had no confidence in what I was doing out there. It's tough to try and get a good jump when you feel that way."

Hooker had declared himself fit after knee injury but underprepared for just his third competition of the year, a contrast with his position at Berlin two years ago when he cleared 5.90m with a groin strain to win gold.

The 29-year-old, whose leap of 6.06m indoors in the 2009 season was the second highest in history behind retired world record holder Sergei Bubka, admitted he had rushed his preparations.

Before the competition, Hooker vowed to battle all the way to stay in the contest and, after such a deflating exit, the Australian felt he had let himself down.

"No excuse for what happened today, I would expect more of myself," he said.

Hooker, who had also been experimenting with a new fibre glass pole, said he had decided to call time on his season and turn his attention to preparing for his Olympic title defence in London next year.

"If I can take anything out positive out of this it would be that I'm healthy for the first time since 2008," he said. "This means I can get an early start on preparations for next year."

Hooker's best height this season of 5.60 left him some 30 centimetres behind the likes of France's Renaud Lavillenie and Pole Pawel Wojciechowski, who will be expected to battle it out for gold on Monday.