The Hindu : Freeman denies retirement rumours

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jun 21, 2003

Sport

Sport - Athletics

Freeman denies retirement rumours

Sydney June 20. Olympic champion Cathy Freeman has denied that she planned to retire, but said she would not compete in individual races for the foreseeable future.

The 400-metre gold medalist at the Sydney 2000 Olympics said she still planned to compete in the 4x100m relay at the World Championships in Paris in August.

But at 30, Freeman said she no longer felt the drive to continue running in individual events. ``I was born to run, so I'm not even contemplating the `R' word,'' Freeman said in a television interview on Thursday.

Explaining why she was dropping individual races for now, she said: ``It's just the age, I think that I've lost a little bit of that real steeliness to be the best, that's no longer in me.

``It's not so much influenced by what's going on around me and it's not what's happening to me, it's more what I'm feeling inside,'' she said.

Rumours have been rife that Freeman was considering retirement since she registered her worst 400-metre result in 10 years when she came fifth out of a field of six at a US meet last month.

She subsequently withdrew from a race in France.

Freeman took a year off after winning gold at the 2000 Olympics and then suffered several injuries as well as nursing her now estranged husband Sandy Bodecker through cancer.

AFP

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