[80sfan]

Originally Posted by Glyn W

Strictly Come Dancing.

I can imagine she'll now be doing the rounds of reality telly for the next few years, maybe adverts too.

She seems a decent sort of person and I think bowing out now is probably the right thing for her. She was under a lot of pressure to perform in London, maybe she could make a comeback some day?

It must be lovely though to be 'secure' enough to retire at 23 though

[Smithy1204]

She says ""I love swimming but as a competitive element and elite athlete I won't compete any more," she said." She said she doesn't want to milk it all she can, she'll be 27 by the next Olympics, and that it didn't feel the same getting back into training. It's difficult even training for low-level sporting competitions, and if you don't have the motivation to want to do it, that is the right time to retire as an elite athlete.

Now she's apparently going to be heading a swimming programme to encourage young people to start swimming, and leave school able to swim 25m, so she's not just giving up and doing nothing, just moving on into different aspects of her career.

[elliecat]

Originally Posted by Spider Rico

How many Olympic gold medals did Sharron Davies win?

Rebecca won 2 at the same games. Not bad, if you ask me

Sharron Davies won 2 Golds, 3 silvers and 4 Bronzes, maybe you should check before trying to prove someone wrong.

[jra]

Sharron Davies, IMO was cheated of a gold medal or more, because of the illegal drug using tactics, done for some swimmers, who were living behind the Iron Curtain, e.g. the former East Germany (DDR).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Germany
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Germany#Sport

She was robbed basically, and I believe she is still pissed off about this to this day.

http://www.clinchem.org/content/43/7/1262.full

Originally Posted by wikipedia

Sharron Elizabeth Davies MBE (born 1 November 1962) is a retired swimmer from the United Kingdom. She won a silver medal in the 400 metre individual medley at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, and two gold medals at the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton. Since retiring from the sport, she has worked as television presenter and served as a patron of charities for disabled children and fitness.

Originally Posted by wikipedia

Davies has been very vocal in the calls for a reallocation of medals and titles at the various games where East German athletes won using illegal, drug supported development techniques. Sports bodies have recognised the superior achievement of athletes like Sharron who shunned the use of performance enhancing substances but have fallen short of rewriting the medal tables.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharron_Davies

[Amnesia Haze]

Originally Posted by candyfloss2000

Lol.

She was rubbish anyway.

[premixxed]

Is this "the competition is really, really hard at Olympic level now, I pissed it before in Asia, but they have trained and got really good at swimming,I'm rich now, so can't be arsed. I like shoes."

When the going got tough.......
<Devils advocate>

[Inspiration]

People seem to be confusing retiring from a sport with retiring from work.

She is retiring from professional swimming which is a sport dominated by young people and she probably feels she has already peaked and done all she needed to do in the sport.

[Frood]

Originally Posted by elliecat

Sharron Davies won 2 Golds, 3 silvers and 4 Bronzes, maybe you should check before trying to prove someone wrong.

Sharon Davies won no Olympic Gold Medals - so maybe you should check.

[80sfan]

Originally Posted by Smithy1204

Now she's apparently going to be heading a swimming programme to encourage young people to start swimming, and leave school able to swim 25m

It looks like Saturday night ITV is the place to avoid then

[candyfloss2000]

Originally Posted by Inspiration

People seem to be confusing retiring from a sport with retiring from work.

She is retiring from professional swimming which is a sport dominated by young people and she probably feels she has already peaked and done all she needed to do in the sport.

She's 23 not 33. LOL. That is still young. It's quite depressing if you ask me. I wouldn't be surprised if she regrets this decision....

[Pull2Open]

She's giving up a sport not retiring from a job...jeez cu her some slack, she has probably been training every day of her life since she was about 7.

Maybe she wants to quit training and actually try out a business venture...you know...work!

Good luck to her!

[Spider Rico]

Originally Posted by elliecat

Sharron Davies won 2 Golds, 3 silvers and 4 Bronzes, maybe you should check before trying to prove someone wrong.

Maybe you should check the content of my post. I said Olympic golds. Davies won zero.

[KidMoe]

Originally Posted by Inspiration

People seem to be confusing retiring from a sport with retiring from work.

She is retiring from professional swimming which is a sport dominated by young people and she probably feels she has already peaked and done all she needed to do in the sport.

Exactly this. I'd be amazed if Rebecca has earnt enough money to live on for the rest of her life, so she will have to keep working to some extent.

[UKMikey]

Originally Posted by jra

And. What is she going to do now.

She's going to become a stand-up comedian making jokes about Frankie Boyle's appearance.

[80sfan]

Originally Posted by premixxed

Is this "the competition is really, really hard at Olympic level now, I pissed it before in Asia, but they have trained and got really good at swimming,I'm rich now, so can't be arsed. I like shoes."

When the going got tough.......
<Devils advocate>

..... raking in a few hundred thousand quid for busting a few moves with those hunky Strictly dancers must seem much more appealing

[premixxed]

Originally Posted by Inspiration

People seem to be confusing retiring from a sport with retiring from work.

She is retiring from professional swimming which is a sport dominated by young people and she probably feels she has already peaked and done all she needed to do in the sport.

Legends don't retire at 23.

Lets be honest, she got the cash young and couldn't be arsed putting the hours in.

[ffawkes]

Originally Posted by treme

She'll have some porpoiseful career no doubt.

let's hope she has a whale of a time

[Pull2Open]

Originally Posted by candyfloss2000

She's 23 not 33. LOL. That is still young. It's quite depressing if you ask me. I wouldn't be surprised if she regrets this decision....

Yep, you're right...I would also regret only ever achieving 2 olympic golds!

Good grief!!!

[80sfan]

Originally Posted by KidMoe

Exactly this. I'd be amazed if Rebecca has earnt enough money to live on for the rest of her life, so she will have to keep working to some extent.

Does swimming really pay the same wages as Formula 1 or football? It does seem bizarre

Unless she's been careful with the sponsorship money and not spent a great deal

[UKMikey]

Originally Posted by Pull2Open

Yep, you're right...I would also regret only ever achieving 2 olympic golds!

Good grief!!!

It'll look really crap on the CV right? She probably wants to go and have a life but whatever she does those medals will make it easier.

[Frood]

Originally Posted by premixxed

Legends don't retire at 23.

Lets be honest, she got the cash young and couldn't be arsed putting the hours in.

In certain sports, like swimming, they often do.

[KidMoe]

Originally Posted by premixxed

Legends don't retire at 23.

Lets be honest, she got the cash young and couldn't be arsed putting the hours in.

She's not a footballer, swimming is not a lucrative sport and unlike footballers she would have actually had to put in some insane training to do as well as she has.

Taken from BBC Sport following the 2008 olympics:

The ones that really matter, the real story behind Rebecca Adlington's double gold in the pool.

Her day starts when the alarm goes at 5.15am.

By 5.45am she is getting changed at her home pool in Nottingham - home of Nova Centurion Swimming Club.

After a quick warm-up poolside, she is in the water by 6am.

Over the next two hours she will swim about 320 lengths.

She will have swum around 8,000m before many of us are out of bed.

Then it is home for breakfast, a sleep, a bit of TV - then at 4.15pm it's time to leave for the pool again for the second session of the day - when she gets to do it all again.

This happens every day of the week, except Wednesday - when coach Bill Furniss gives her and the 20 or so other members of the Centurion elite squad the morning off - and Saturday, when they get a whole extra hour in bed.

"The best hour of the week," says Centurion and GB team-mate and friend Jess Sylvester, who estimates that in a week Adlington may swim up to 80,000m.

That's more than 50 miles.

It's not glamorous. And it's not lucrative.

As a member of the British Swimming elite team, Adlington is funded by UK Sport.

For the last few years she has been in one of the lowest funding brackets, category C, which has given her an income of between £8,000-£10,000 a year.

Granted, she would have earnt a fair bit with sponsorship deals but with her retired that will dry up. The idea that you enter low-profile sports, incredibly demanding sports "for the money" and then retire at 23 is really rather daft.

[Spider Rico]

Originally Posted by Amnesia Haze

She was rubbish anyway.

2 golds at the same Olympic games, world record holder, 2 bronzes at the next Olympic games. Yeah, rubbish

The narrow-mindedness and disrespect displayed here scares me at times

[Spider Rico]

Originally Posted by premixxed

Legends don't retire at 23.

Lets be honest, she got the cash young and couldn't be arsed putting the hours in.

As I said in an earlier post, Ian Thorpe retired at 24. He's still regarded as a legend. Rebecca is a British swimming legend, IMO. Of that, there should be no argument.

[KidMoe]

Originally Posted by 80sfan

Does swimming really pay the same wages as Formula 1 or football? It does seem bizarre

Unless she's been careful with the sponsorship money and not spent a great deal

She doesn't/didn't get paid to swim, she would just get a grant from UK Sport to cover her not insignificant expenses. Any money she would have made would have come from sponsorship deals, which probably have been quite lucrative but nowhere near the extent of sportspeople from more high profile sports such as Tennis, F1 etc. In all likelyhood she will have to continue to work in some capacity.