Kovchenko was forced to retire two days before the Games begun after scans revealed that if she dove wrong she could be left a quadriplegic.

The pair had won gold in the synchronised platform event at the FINA Diving World Cup on the Gold Coast last year and were favourites for the gold at the Games.

Kovchenko revealed a congenital problem that left her with a hyperflexible neck and vertebrae that compress her spinal cord and brain.

 

Pt.1 This past week I’ve had to make one of the hardest decisions of my career so far and I would like to firstly say thank you to medical professionals at SASI for being so diligent throughout this process because without them life could have be a lot worse. Yesterday I announced I am having to retire from diving due to my safety. Since the end of last year I have had chronic headaches and a lot of pain in my neck. We decided it was time to get it check out last month so I had a few scans done, not thinking much off it. From the first scan we found I have a fairly common genetic formation where my scull formed before my brain finished growing which seemed to pose no immediate problems but my Doctor wanted to send me to the neurologist as this can sometimes cause a build up of fluid in the spinal cord. I had a few more scans done in flexion and extension of my neck which found my neck is hyper flexible and my c1 and c2 are compressing my spinal cord and the bottom of my brain when in these positions. The neurologist and Doctors where very clear that if a dive was to go wrong that the result would be being a ventilated quadriplegic. This was a super scary moment. I thought of every scenario to try and continue diving till at-least the end of this season however the risks highly out weighed the options of continuing to dive and sadly had to make the heart breaking decision to stop diving. I have had an amazing 14 years diving chasing my dream of representing Australia. I am great full for every experience and opportunity I have been given. I am leaving the sport as an athlete proud of my accomplishments and with so many life skills. I have learnt so much from this sport including courage, determination, inner strength, persistence, confidence, self belief, to aspire, support and empathize with teammates even if it’s a primarily individual sport. This may be the end of my diving career but I’m not going to be a stranger to the sport, I’m still in love with it.

A post shared by Taneka Kovchenko (@tkovchenko) on

Wu said it reminded her of how vulnerable an athlete's life is.

"I'd seen her diving through an injury that had been giving her trouble for a while, and to see her push through that made me think: 'wow, what a great athlete'," she said.

"To hear she had a risk to her health, I felt so sad for her.

"I have respect for how tough she is," Wu said.

Wu will be joined up on the platform by Brisbane-based Teju Williamson.

Williamson was shocked when she was to take over Kovchenko's place in the event.  

"I was quite shocked but Melissa was so supportive," she said.

"We just said let's see how it goes for the first couple of days and see whether or not it was going to work."

The pair has been working hard to form a combination before the competition and Wu has said they've both been working together well.

"We've had a bit of training on the platform and getting used to how the other person dives and making the necessary adjustments," she said.

"It's been tough on the whole team but at the end of the day we still have to compete and it's great to have Teju become part of the team.

"We're just lucky to have the opportunity to dive."

Williamson and Wu take to the platform for the preliminary of the women's 10m platform on Thursday.