Australia's Olympic 100 metres hurdles champion Sally Pearson has pulled out of this summer's Games with a hamstring injury.
The 29-year-old has spent much of the year battling back from a serious wrist injury, and was disappointed with her results on her comeback at the Diamond League meeting in Birmingham earlier this month and follow-up races in Montreuil, France, and Oslo.
She returned home to step up her training for Rio, claiming in a 18 June post on her website that she had "left nothing in the tank" - but the effort proved too much as she tore the tendons of the biceps femoris muscle, ending her hopes of defending her title from London 2012.
"Going over the hurdles, I felt two sort of squeezes in my hamstring and my heart sank, it was very disappointing," Pearson told 9News.
"I thought it was just a hamstring tear, probably take me a couple of weeks and I'll be all right.
"We went and got scans and it showed it was actually a tendon tear. Any tendon in the body takes a long time to recover, I've had a few Achilles injuries and they take the exact same amount of time.
"The risk of going to compete at the Olympics could do major damage to my hamstring, and there'd be no opportunity to come back and try to go to the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in two years' time.
"So for me, my sights are firmly set on the future. Although it's heartbreaking and devastating that I can't be in Rio, as the Olympic champion, and run at 100% and be proud to represent my country, it's just not going to happen this year - my body wasn't allowing it.
"Seven weeks out from when I was due to race, it's gut-wrenching, but there's no point dwelling on it, for me now I'm just going to be looking forward to the future and hope that this thing can recover quickly... well, I've got all the time in the world now, so it doesn't really matter.
"You can always go to the Olympics and make up the numbers, but for me personally, I'm a fierce competitor and I don't want to go and represent my country when I can't run at 100% and chase for a medal."
Pearson won gold in London in 12.35 seconds, having taken silver in Beijing four years earlier.
She also won gold at the World Championships in Daegu in 2011 in a career best 12.28secs and is a two-time Commonwealth and former world indoor champion.
