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Topics: Sport, Olympics, World News, Health
Rhianna Benson
Topics: Sport, Olympics, World News, Health
With a mass of experience under the belt, and countless skills up their sleeves, it's rare to see Olympic-level athletes making potentially-fatal mistakes whilst performing.
Tragically, however, it can happen. And no one is more aware of that than Italian diver Maia Biginelli, who was just millimetres from suffering a catastrophic head injury during this week's competitions.
In fact, the sportswoman's near-deadly move sparked such a horrified reaction from spectators that one BBC commentator had a few things to say to the judges for not intervening sooner.
On Monday evening (5 August), a 21-year-old Biginelli took to the board in a bid to bag a medal at Paris' Aquatics Centre.
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Despite this being the sportswoman's Olympic debut, the diver had years of professional experience under her belt before taking the plunge.
Unfortunately, however, her expertise seemingly fell short, when she failed to create a sizeable enough distance between herself and the board as she performed a 3.2 difficulty three-and-a-half somersaults inward dive in the tuck position for her third effort.
Biginella narrowly avoided the devastating injury, with her hair falling just millimetres from the board.
The near-fatal incident sparked a wave of gasps from members of the audience - both at home and in the Olympic stands.
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And by the sounds of things, one of the most taken-aback viewers of Biginelli was BBC commentator Leon Taylor, who called upon judges to act in penalising the sportswoman.
In the hope that intervention would prevent a similarly catastrophic injury in the future, a visibly irate presenter - who represented Team GB in diving back in 2004 - could be heard yelling live on air: "Judges, you need to do your job now!"
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"You didn’t do it this morning. Do your job now," he begged. "That is a dangerous, dangerous dive.
"Her hair hits the diving board, she should be massively penalised for that. Her hair pretty much hits the board."
Springboard diver Taylor - known for winning medals at all major international events, including a silver at the 2004 Athens Olympics - went on to demand: "What are you watching from your seats? What are you watching?
"We’ve got a duty of care in this sport to keep athletes safe. You’ve got to penalise. Coaches, you can see that as well."
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Much to the pundit's dismay, however, the Italian athlete went on to receive a pretty impressive 41.60 for her performance, with no penalty for the 'dangerous' dive having been inflicted.
In the end, however, Biginelli landed in 18th of the semi-final of the women's 10m platform - a competition which saw China's Quan Hongchan awarded first place, before later winning gold in the final.
China's Chen Yuxi was later awarded silver, and North Korea's Kim Mi-rae landed bronze.