ALBI, July 26, 2008 (AFP) - France's former heptathlon and long jump world champion Eunice Barber failed to qualify for her fifth Olympic Games here on Saturday.

The 33-year-old Sierra Leone-born athlete - world champion in the heptathlon in 1999 and then long jump queen in 2003 - failed by 18 centimetres to reach the qualifying mark for the long jump at the French national championships.

Barber competed for Sierra Leone in the 1992 and 1996 Olympics and for France in 2000 and 2004 but never won a medal.