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Double Olympic champion Kelly Holmes retired from running on Tuesday and announced she planned to take up the new challenge of ice dancing on a television reality show.
At an emotion-charged news conference the 35-year-old Holmes said she was no longer motivated and had also been deeply upset by the sudden death of a man she had met in Ireland.
"I don't want to do it anymore. I have achieved everything I wanted...I have nothing to prove to anybody, including myself," she said.
Holmes also said she had met a friend of her physiotherapist during a trip to Ireland, who was not feeling well after falling over in a tennis match.
"One minute I was having lunch with the guy and the next minute he had four weeks to live and he did die four weeks later," she said. "That was a life-changing experience for me."
Holmes then announced a total career change.
"I will be starring in 'Dancing On Ice'...I decided maybe I needed another challenge."
"I have never skated before. It is a lot harder than I envisaged. My family find it quite hilarious the thought of me dancing in a tutu. But I am up for it and have started training with a pro dancer," she said.
ROLLERCOASTER CAREER
Holmes confirmed she would not compete at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games next March after missing the Helsinki world championships in August with an Achille injury. She had been named provisionally in England's team for Melbourne.
A former army officer, Holmes left in 1997 to concentrate on athletics and started training with 2000 Olympic champion Maria Mutola.
Only the third woman in Olympic history to complete the 800-1,500 double at a single Olympic Games, Holmes was the first Briton in 84 years to win two athletics golds in the same Games.
"The fact that I hung in there totally makes me believe in fate," she said of a rollercoaster career that proved a triumph of perseverance over adversity.
Her constant battle with injuries prompted twice Olympic 1,500 champion Sebastian Coe, who twice failed to clinch the same double, to write she was a "Rolls Royce athlete being given back-street servicing".
Once asked to describe her injuries, Holmes drew a deep breath and said: "Let's see -- hips, femoral nerve, calcification of the hip bone, lower leg problems, shin problems, calf injury."
Athens, for her, was the supreme moment.
"I am not a religious person at all but I remember sitting in my room the day before the Games started. I closed all my doors and put all my inspirational messages up.
"I sat on my bed and a big gust of air swirled around my neck. At that point I knew I was going to do something special and I had that feeling during every day of the Olympic games."
(Additional reporting by Ossian Shine)
