Basketball was the love of her life but in the end it was too much for Lauren Jackson.
A career that spanned two decades and the globe had taken its toll on her body and on Thursday, forced Australia's greatest female basketballer and one of the world's best to retire from the sport.
Despite weeks of intense rehabilitation, Jackson was unable to recover from successive knee surgeries and complications - shattering her dream of competing for gold at a fifth Olympic Games in Rio.
A torn anterior cruciate ligament in December and an infection in her knee joint in January capped off years of pain and more than 20 operations - 13 on her knees alone.
It's left her with arthritis and a limp.
"To say goodbye to my love - what was my life, my identity - this hurts," an emotional Jackson, flanked by her Opals teammates and coach, told a packed media conference on the same court she began her career at Canberra's Australian Institute of Sport in 1997.
"A few tears have been shed and I feel kind of empty right now, really empty, but I guess ready and excited for the next chapter - whatever that may be."
Jackson came close to calling it quits at the start of the year but pushed on until doctors told her last week there was "no way" she could play in Brazil.
Her only hope of returning to court in the future was to have a knee reconstruction, which she is considering.
"I think it was a bit of a shock to hear that ... but the writing was on the wall.
"I knew it wasn't going to get better but I wanted it to so badly.
"I'm not going out the way I wanted to go and I didn't want my career to be cut this short. But I'm grateful that I got to achieve what I did in this sport and all over the world, especially with the Opals."
Jackson labelled her 12 straight WNBA seasons with the Seattle Storm the best years of her life, having won two titles and been named MVP three times. But she said her world championship gold medal in 2006 was her most memorable achievement.
She was the Opals' youngest debutant at 16 back in 1997.
She went on to help them win silver at the Sydney, Athens and Beijing Olympics before claiming bronze in London, where she was also Australia's flagbearer at the opening ceremony.
"Lauren is one of the greats of all time, in any sport," Joyce said.
Jackson's immediate focus is to spend time with her family, finish her university degree and continue work with Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia.
There is a chance she may still go to Rio in a media capacity.
