Swimmer admits she’s at peace with her decision to retire from competitive action at age 29
Ellen Keane on retirement: ‘I need to figure out who I am, what I like, what I’m going to do’Paralympics chief says athletes should not be sidelined from funding and awards
“Tokyo for me was the pinnacle of my career, I kind of knew that,” she says. “And when I came home from Tokyo, I knew I wanted to retire in Paris, so it’s really been the last three years in itself where I’ve had a lot of reflecting, moments of thinking about why I started. “Like when Róisín won her first medal the day of my breaststroke, and even though she came second, and I came fourth, it kind of felt like a passing of the guard, like this isn’t my time any more. And it kind of made it easier to make peace with it, I didn’t feel jealous in the slightest. Not angry in the slightest, I just felt so proud of her, and so excited of what the future holds.”
“We strive to be recognised as elite athletes, so the reason standards are so high and hard to hit is because of this. And you can’t grow a sport if the times aren’t getting faster, the standards aren’t getting better, you need to be able to push people. You don’t want to just watch a participation event, that’s not what the Paralympics is.”
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