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Gymnastics world all-around favorite withdraws in warm-up

Related Topics: Larisa Iordache, Montreal

MONTREAL — Romanian Larisa Iordache, an all-around medal favorite, withdrew from the world gymnastics championships with an apparent injury suffered during qualification warm-ups Wednesday.

Iordache left the competition floor before her first event, floor exercise, and has been ruled out of the meet, according to International Gymnastics Federation officials.

Iordache, a world all-around medalist behind Simone Biles in 2014 and 2015, was set to be the primary competition for U.S. champion Ragan Smith in Friday’s all-around final.

Smith, a Rio Olympic alternate, is seeking to extend a U.S. streak of Olympic and world all-around titles dating to 2011 (Jordyn Wieber, Gabby Douglas, Biles).