Ennis-Hill to miss Gotzis event as injury hampers Olympics run-up

(Reuters) - Britain's Jessica Ennis-Hill has been forced to withdraw from an athletics event in Austria in June, just months before hoping to defend her Olympic crown, due to a recurrence of a long-standing Achilles problem. "Organizers of the #HypoMeeting in Gotzis have confirmed that Jessica Ennis-Hill has been forced to withdraw from this year's competition," the IAAF said on its official Twitter account on Friday. The 30-year-old Olympic and world heptathlon champion was also forced to withdraw from the World Indoor Championships in Portland in March. It adds to a list of injury setbacks for Ennis-Hill since she returned to competition following the birth of her son last season, having previously damaged a calf muscle on the way to winning the World Championship in Beijing in 2015. Despite her injury problems, Ennis-Hill has already achieved enough points over the course of the year to ensure qualification for the Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro in August. Fellow Britons Katarina Johnson-Thompson and Morgan Lake are both set to compete in Gotzis as they bid to join Ennis-Hill in Rio. (Reporting by Shravanth Vijayakumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Hugh Lawson)