Australian Craig Mottram has been forced to pull out of Saturday's Great Edinburgh Cross Country race with a calf strain.
Mottram was due to face Ethiopia's Olympic and world 10,000m champion Kenenisa Bekele in the 9km race.
"I would have loved to have been there but in these situations you have to look after yourself," he said.
Defending champion Bekele will still face African rivals Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya and Zersenay Tadesse of Eritrea.
It would have been Bekele's first race against Mottram since he was beaten by the Australian in the IAAF World Cup 3,000m title last September in Athens.
"I aggravated my calf muscle in Madrid on New Year's Eve so I'm going to get that seen to and then I will decide what to do over the next few weeks," added Mottram, who also missed last weekend's Cross Zornotza Internacional event in Spain.
Meanwhile, Sergey Lebid and Rui Silva will face European champion Mo Farah in the 4km race at Holyrood Park.
Ukrainian Lebid was six-time European champion until defeated by Farah last month, while Portugal's Silva won bronze over 1500m in the World Championships.
Farah will also face fellow Britons Nick McCormick and Andrew Baddeley and expects a tough race in the Scottish capital.
"Silva is a tough competitor and there's no way I'll be ruling out either Andy or Nick, who have always ran well in this race before, or indeed Lebid," Farah said.