Former world champion Cheong Jun Hoong is one of the early casualties of the budget cuts implemented by the Sports Ministry for next year.
Malaysia Swimming (MS) secretary-general Mae Chen confirmed that the national body and the National Sports Council (NSC) jointly agreed not to renew the diver's full-time contract for next season during their working committee meeting on Friday.
However, other divers have been retained for the new season.
"Jun Hoong has been lacking quality results since 2018 and has also been struggling with injuries since then," said Mae yesterday.
"Age is also a factor for her as she is already 31 this year.
"It was not an easy decision. However, we feel that it is best for her to be rested."
Jun Hoong, when contacted yesterday, was not aware of the decision and wanted more time before commenting.
The Ipoh-born entered the history books when she became the first Malaysian to win a world championships title in diving after winning the 10m individual platform gold at the 2017 Budapest world meet.
But the former Asian Games silver medallist has found it hard to get back to her best since undergoing knee surgery in 2018.
In her last major event, the diver failed to progress beyond the preliminary round of the platform event at the Tokyo Olympics.
As expected, the national swimming squad, whose results at recent editions of the Sea Games have been underwhelming, have been hit hard by the budget cuts.
Only Welson Sim, Khiew Hoe Yan, Arvin Singh and Phee Jinq En were retained under the full-time programme while the contracts of 10 others were not renewed.
Mae hopes to help those dropped to get reinstated on the condition that they can perform well in upcoming events.
"For the others, we consider their contracts to be 'suspended' for the meantime because we are hoping to help them get reinstated.
"They need to achieve the 2019 Sea Games bronze medal marks of their respective disciplines in upcoming tournaments. If they are able to do that, we can then appeal for them to be reinstated.
"NSC, however, have agreed that they can continue to use the pool facilities at Bukit Jalil and also train under the national coaches here.
"But they will not receive any allowances and accommodation.
"They also cannot use the sports science facilities (at the National Sports Institute). We will look to find a solution for them in this regard."
MS hope to secure private sector sponsorship to ease the situation.
On a more positive note, Mae disclosed that the NSC have agreed to sign a new national assistant coach from China to support current diving head coach Li Rui.
NSC had earlier this week disclosed that they were looking to reduce the number of full-time athletes in their programme from 432 to 288 next year.