Danvers told the Sunday People how the strain of trying to recover drove her to take an overdose of sleeping tablets.

"I had a packet of sleeping pills, which I'd been prescribed because I was suffering from insomnia, and started taking them all," she said.

But she was eventually able to call her boyfriend in the United States, where she has her permanent home with her young son, and he alerted her cousin, who arrived at her flat and looked after her.

Danvers missed the 2004 Athens Games through pregnancy, but two years later she won silver at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games before her bronze medal performance at Beijing in 2008 (pictured top).

"It's extremely disappointing not to be able to put myself into contention for selection for London 2012," she said.

"Based on my training at different stages my coach and I believed we had a genuine chance of making it.

"But the setbacks have been too many to overcome.

"Since winning Olympic bronze in Beijing I have made so many sacrifices to fulfil my dream of competing in London.

"Making the decision to relocate back to the United Kingdom meant leaving my seven-year-old son behind in America, which is the hardest thing in the world to do.


"But we genuinely believed I could step onto that podium again and with the support of my family, [coach] Malcolm Arnold, UKA [UK Athletics], the medical team and the National Lottery, I've done everything possible to try and achieve that.

"Sadly my body has had enough."

Danvers has been one of Britain's most consistent hurdlers, making every final she has contested since 2004.

Coach Malcolm Arnold, awarded an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours, said: "This is the worse possible news for Tasha, but there is no doubt she has thrown everything at trying to make London.

"She is an Olympic medallist and that pedigree doesn't just disappear – I was confident that if we could get her to the Games she would have been very competitive.

"This is the flipside of the Olympic dream but career-ending injuries are a fact of life at this level of sport.

"Our medical team have worked incredibly hard but sometimes the body knows best."

Charles van Commenee, the UK head coach, added: "We don't have too many current Olympic medallists in our team and in an ideal world they would all be with us in London.

"Tasha knows what it takes to be competitive and make the podium, which would have been a huge advantage.

"Retirement is a hard decision for any athlete, but when the decision is taken out of your hands so close to an Olympic Games it must be even tougher.

"I wish Tasha all the very best."

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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