Australian track cycling queen Anna Meares yesterday announced her retirement, two months after grabbing her sixth Olympic medal to cap a career defined by courage and sacrifice.
The two-time Olympic champion, who won 11 world titles and bore her nation’s flag at Rio, mulled bowing out at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in her home state of Queensland, but said the physical toll extracted by 22 years of competition had helped make up her mind.
Meares revealed she had taken six cortisone injections in her spine just to get to Rio, where she struggled in the defense of her sprint title, but took the keirin bronze.
“Having had to change tack for six months leading into it and to achieve the things I have, I feel satisfied and happy to step aside from the sport and try something new and different,” the 33-year-old told local broadcaster Channel Nine.
“I have been able to achieve so many wonderful things, more than most. I am the most successful for women in my sport in the field,” she added.
A coal miner’s daughter raised in a remote Queensland town, Meares spent much of her childhood in the back seat of her parents’ car, driving about 250km to reach the nearest velodrome for training.
She emerged as a 20-year-old sensation in 2004, storming to the 500m time trial gold in world-record time at the Athens Summer Olympic Gamess, months after winning the world title at her home championships in Melbourne.
However, her reputation for toughness was forged four years later, when she broke her neck, dislocated her shoulder and tore ligaments in a sickening crash at a World Cup event seven months before the Beijing Olympics.
Wheelchair-bound and with her neck in a brace, Meares told a stunned media conference she intended to compete at Beijing.
Less than two weeks later, she was back on her bike, starting an intensive rehabilitation regime that would culminate in a sprint silver behind Victoria Pendleton.
Her enthralling rivalry with the British great raised the profile of track cycling, offering a rare narrative of clean competition, even as a seemingly endless string of doping scandals on the men’s professional tour blighted the sport overall.
Meares won their dramatic replay of the sprint final at London, the pair’s teary embrace after the duel one of the Games’ most memorable moments.
A new generation of riders emerged to challenge Meares in the next Olympic cycle, but she remained at the pinnacle in her 30s, clinching her third keirin world title at Yvelines last year.
She said she would remain involved in Australian cycling in mentoring roles, as the national team strives to regroup for Tokyo after a disappointing campaign in Rio.
“It is hard to close this chapter, because it is a bloody big one, but I am really excited about the doors opening in to the next chapter of my life,” Meares said.
SS Lazio on Monday fired the far-right sympathizer who handles their eagle mascot after he posted online a series of videos and pictures of his erect penis. Falconer Juan Bernabe, who has been present at Lazio home matches with Olimpia the eagle since the 2010-2011 season, posted the footage on social media after having surgery on Saturday to implant a penile prosthesis to improve his sexual performance. Lazio said that they had “terminated, with immediate effect” their relationship with Bernabe “due to the seriousness of his conduct,” adding that they were “shocked” by the images. The Serie A club added that Bernabe’s dismissal
The NHL postponed the Los Angeles Kings’ home game against the Calgary Flames on Wednesday with several massive wildfires burning across the greater Los Angeles area. The Kings and Flames were scheduled to play on Wednesday night at the Kings’ downtown arena. The NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers were scheduled to host the Charlotte Hornets in the same arena last night. “Our hearts are with our entire Los Angeles community,” the Kings said in a statement. “We appreciate the hard working first responders who are diligently working to contain the fire and protect our community. We appreciate the league’s support in keeping our
Doping fears prevented former US Open champion Emma Raducanu from treating insect bites on the eve of the Australian Open, she said, with players increasingly wary about ingesting contaminated substances. The British player was speaking in the wake of high-profile doping cases involving Iga Swiatak and Jannik Sinner. “I would say all of us are probably quite sensitive to what we take on board, what we use,” the 22-year-old said, recalling an incident on Friday. “I got really badly bitten by, I don’t know what, like ants, mosquitoes, something. I’m allergic, I guess,” she added. The bites “flared up and swelled up really a
TWO IN A WEEK: Despite an undefeated start to the year playing alongside Jiang Xinyu of China, Wu Fang-hsien is to play the Australian Open with a Russian partner Taiwan’s Wu Fang-hsien yesterday triumphed at the Hobart International, winning the women’s doubles title at the US$275,094 outdoor hard-court tournament, while McCartney Kessler lifted the trophy in the women’s singles. Fourth-ranked Wu and partner Jiang Xinyu of China took 1 hour, 15 minutes to defeat Romania’s Monica Niculescu and Fanny Stollar of Hungary, 6-1, 7-6 (8/6) at the Hobart International Tennis Centre, their second title in a week. Wu and Jiang on Sunday won the women’s doubles title at the ASB Classic in Auckland, beating Serbia’s Aleksandra Krunic and Sabrina Santamaria of the US. Their winning ways continued in Australia as they stretched
RSS