Contact Center Solutions Industry News

[February 16, 2006]

Retirement was such a tough decision EXCLUSIVE Motivation no longer there for the British oarsman who won two Olympic golds and six world titles

(The Daily Telegraph, Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)THE pile of Lycra in the corner of the bedroom that has provided a memory of my past and - until a few days ago - a glimpse of my future, can now be distributed to those with greater need. As Oxfam probably don't need countless XL Lycra suits, a local rowing club seem the best home.

My decision to retire from rowing has not been easy. In the 17 months since the Athens Games my feelings have fluctuated between wanting to race in Beijing in 2008 and looking forward to new challenges.

My recent journey across the Atlantic may have acted as a type of aversion therapy. Rowing 12 hours a day for nearly two months must be the same as locking a smoker in a room with 1,000 cigarettes. It turns out you can have too much of a good thing.

And competitive rowing was certainly a good thing. Not only in terms of personally satisfying victories, but being able to achieve those with the very best. Ask any rower in the world who they would want in their boat and they are likely to name the two big guys: Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent.

But training alongside them was perhaps more important than crossing finish lines together. Since the age of 18 I had the world's best rowers lifting weights and pulling the 'ergo' next to me. I got to see that they were not superhuman and there was no reason why I couldn't beat them.

Retiring is made slightly easier because I'm pretty satisfied with what I have achieved. The two Olympic golds and six world titles may go down as the defining statistics of my career, but I am more proud of making the most of my limited talent and never refusing to believe I wasn't going to win at the Olympics - even after missing the 1992 Games through injury and those of 1996 due to illness the day before I was due to race.

Nevertheless, it was a momentously difficult decision. Much of me would still love to race at Beijing and whatever I'm doing in 2l years time, I will wish that I was in that boat. Perhaps it would have been easy to go back to the comfort blanket of full-time training, with each day, week and month planned out by coaches and calendars. But that would have meant avoiding the risk of attempting to succeed at something other than rowing.

Crossing the Atlantic allowed me to taste the enjoyment of new challenges. Although my bum is in no rush to get back on a sliding seat, it is too simplistic to suggest that the Atlantic race has put me off rowing. In fact, I wished I'd done the race years ago because it taught me how hard you can push the human body, mentally and physically, before it breaks down.

I told my (ex) coach, Jurgen Grobler, to add a few extra training sessions to the daily programme as the body can clearly take it. I told some of the rowers the same thing but they didn't seem to appreciate it.

Initially, Jurgen tried to persuade me to carry on but could see that my mind was made up. He is not only a great coach but also a good friend. "My head says I need you in the team,'' he said, "but my heart says you have made the right choice.''

Jurgen knows better than anyone that my competitive instincts will probably never entirely dissipate. This is a harsh fact that I have also come to realise. Let's just hope I find another outlet so I'm not trying to beat my kid at football in the back garden.

Hopefully I can channel those energies into my new ventures: working for this newspaper, ITV Sport and starting my own company, Oarsome Experiences. The precarious and subjective nature of the former will hopefully be balanced out by the security of the latter. Taking people out of their normal environment to give them a real taste of rowing (on the 2012 Olympic course) should at least satisfy the slave-driver in me.

Despite the appeal of these exciting options, I tried to ignore them when making my decision. I had to decide if I really wanted to row, rather than dwell on chances I might be missing. I concluded that I didn't have the motivation required on a daily basis.

Perhaps I could do the glory run into Beijing for a year but rowing is not that easy. Even now I'd be cutting it close to get into the best shape of my life and, more than you do in any other sport, you have other people's dreams in your hands. At the moment mine would be about as safe as Kevin Pietersen in the slips and that would not be fair on the guys I'd be racing with.

I'd like to thank everybody I raced with; Jurgen for getting the best out of us all while never ducking out of a tough decision; and my family, especially my parents, who bought tickets to three Olympics before I had even made it to the start line.

My own transition to spectator was completed last Saturday when I was lucky enough to watch England play Wales at Twickenham. As God Save the Queen rang round it dawned on me that I would never have that played for me again. No wonder Lawrence Dallaglio came out of retirement. But I'm thankful that I got to experience it at all.

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