London, Jul 26: With the big names like Rafeal Nadal, Chris Bosh, Carolina Kluft injured and David Beckham and Ian Thorpe past their best, the London Olympics which is slated to begin from Jul 27 will miss these stars for sure.

London Olympics 2012 Specials

"It is one of the saddest days of my career," said Nadal, who was the gold medallist in tennis singles at Beijing, after announcing his withdrawal from the Games.

The Spanish Tennis star, who has won 50 career titles including 11 Grand Slam titles, opted out of Olympic Games 2012 as he had to rest his chronically suspect knees ahead of the US Open to be held at New York next month.

His decision also meant he had to surrender the honour of carrying the nation's flag at the opening ceremony to the basketball star Pau Gasol.

If that was a huge blow to the tennis stars, who wanted to see how Nadal takes on the World's best Tennis champs, there were more to follow as United States' basket ball team would be playing in the Olympics without their main stars - Derrick Rose, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, Dwight Howard, LaMarcus Aldridge and Chauncey Billups.

Similarly, Croatia's double world high jump champion Blanka Vlasic will also be missed as he underwent an Achilles tendon operation in January.

To add more gloom to the London Games, Defending triple jump champion Nelson Evora of Portugal and great French hope Teddy Thamgho, the world indoor champion will also miss out the action at London Olympics.

Sweden's three-time world heptathlon champion, Carolina Kluft also pulled out of the Games on Sunday following a thigh injury.

Kluft who was eagerly waiting to participate in the Long jump had to opt out due to the thigh injury at a regional meeting in Kuortane, Finland.

"I don't want to go to London with this kind of preparations," she said.

Kluft, the Olympic heptathlon champion at the 2004 Athens Olympics and the winner of the World title in 2003, 2005 and 2007, was forced to pull out of the Games due to this injury.

While these names weren't enough there are more to follow as cyclists Samuel Sanchez of Spain, the defending champion and Andy Schleck of Luxembourg will also be missed.

In the pool, Australian star, Ian Thorpe a five-time Olympic champion who failed to qualify for the Games after coming out of retirement will be another athlete who will be missed at the London Games.

However, Norwegian swimmer Dale Oen will be missed the most as he died of a heart attack while he was at a training camp in Arizona in the month of April.

While England's football captain, David Beckham was also not selected for the Great Britain team, will be another player to be absent at the Games.

With many star athletes missing at London Olympics, it remains to be seen if that affects the medals tally.

OneIndia News